the longer you can do what, frankly, is a rose garden strategy. look at me governing. i'm a great leader. i don't have to get in the mud with donald trump. polls show him trailing, so he'll have to get in the mud a little bit. for now, it is working. don't take risks. don't stand on a stage where he might get booed. and hand it over to donald trump and say, it's not actually that important. >> we'll see how national audiences respond to desantis once they get to know him. also, pompeo, pence, the like, when will they jump in, too? brandon buck, thank you so much for your insight this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this thursday morning. with the morning joe" starts right now. i love your republican colleagues you have to work with, but the maga republicans, they're amazing. they're really amazing, their calculations. they say biden and the democrats, because they brought down the price of drugs, they're

increasing inflation. well, it has the advantage of not only people being able to live longer and better and be able to perform their prescription drugs, but, guess what? it reduces the deficit $158 billion. [ applause ] don't forget that part to tell people. it's not just that you pay less for the drug. it means that the federal government isn't paying for the drugs for medicare. >> president joe biden in baltimore last night, debunking republican claims about the deficit and calling on democrats to remind americans what his administration has achieved over the past two years. meanwhile, on capitol hill, a hearing dominated by grievance politics, as attorney general merrick garland makes his first appearance before the new congress. >> he actually had insurrectionists.

>> right. >> like, the guy with, like -- what is it, willie, the bird bone hands, like, doing the power to the people signal. >> the raised fist. that's right. >> raised fist of a bird. >> yeah. >> there it is. >> there we go. >> i'll tell you what, a brisk wind could break that arm right off. he needs to be careful. >> or his democratic challenger. >> he just -- anyway, can you believe that insurrectionists that were trying to overthrow american democracy can sit up in front of merrick garland, a guy who has dedicated his life to the rule of law, and be self-righteous, willie? what a joke. >> it was quite a display. since we've started in on it, we might as well show, this is the senate judiciary committee hearing yesterday. many of the people who cheered on the attack on january 6th,

who cheered on the overturning of the 2020 election, even after the attack, by the way, voted for that, putting attorney general merrick garland in the hot seat yesterday on a variety of issues. here's some of what happened yesterday. >> i have to say, i'm deeply disappointed in what the last two years have shown. in my judgement, the department of justice has been politicized to the greatest extent i've ever seen in this country. and it has done a discredit to the department of justice, to the fbi and the administration of law in this country. >> i also want to at least respond to your characterization of the department, which i vigorously disagree with. i believe the men and women of the department pursue their work every single day in a non-partisan and an appropriate way. >> when rioters descended at the homes of six supreme court justices, night after night after night, you did nothing. have you brought a single case against any of these protesters

threatening the justices under 18 u.s. seat section -- have you brought one? >> you asked whether i sat on my hands, and quite the opposite. i sent 70 united states marshals. >> are you unwilling to say no? the answer is no. you know it's no. everyone in this room knows it is no. you're not willing to answer a question. >> when you issued your directive, when you directed your criminal divisions and your counterterrorism divisions to investigate parents who are angry at school boards. >> i did not do that. i did not issue any memorandum directing the investigation of parents who were concerned about their children. the memorandum was aimed at violence and threats of violence against a whole host of school personnel. it was not aimed at parents making complaints to their school board. >> attorney general, are you

cultivating sources and spies in latin mass parishes and other parishes across the country? >> justice department doesn't do that. >> how many informants do you have in catholic churches across america. >> i don't know. i don't think we have any in catholic churches. >> does your department have anti-catholic bias? >> our department protects all religions and all ideologies. it does not have any bias against any religion of any kind. decisions about how to go about this were made on the ground by fbi agents. >> so you're saying you don't know? >> i'm saying what i just said. >> which is that you're abdicating responsibility? >> i'm not -- >> then give me the answer. do you think, in your opinion, you were the attorney general of the united states. you are in charge of the justice department. yes, sir, you are responsible. >> yeah. >> give me an answer. we're supposed to hate long guns and assault style weapons. you're happy to deploy them

against catholics and innocent children. >> joe, we have to start with the acting. >> oh, come on. >> my gosh. >> i was just thinking, willie, the acting, i'm so glad you picked up on that. as i was looking at this, i was thinking, i really think that morning shows should do i think a service to all of these members. we could play this sarah mclaughlin tune, "into the arms of an angel." say for $5, just $5, you can contribute to people who are insurrectionists against the united states of america, who tried to overthrow a democratic election, and help them with acting lessons. i must say, by the way, here we have these three populists. the guy is screaming. some of the worst acting i've seen. >> i'm still act to -- >> anyway, the first guy was a

princeton boy, who i think he went to harvard law school. then you had the corn guy, oxford boy who voted for john kerry. then you had josh hawley. >> we have a graphic? >> look at this chart. i love this. then you had -- you had -- they don't have the oxford boy, though. >> i'm embarrassed for ivy. >> oxford boy. then you had josh hawley who was yale undergrad and harvard law school. doing their yelling and populist nonsense. this is very good. if we could have one who just had members who went to oxford and voted for john kerry and play right-wing populists, that would be great. maybe we can work on that one, too. >> that was so bad.

>> first of all, ted yelling about the most politicized department of justice ever, following donald trump's justice department. and barr, who played, again, who just played donald trump's lackey until the very end when he decided, well, i have to get out and write a book about how i won the war. it's mind-boggling. then you've got, you know, these guys pick up things off the internet. they actually have the temerity to act shocked and then ask merrick garland, do you take long guns after little children? like, what are they doing? this is like -- this is like, who is the oldest republican ever in -- >> thurmond? >> chuck grassley. >> i thought you meant in history. >> grassley. >> yeah. >> grassley. what is it with these people, going, oh, they're taking ar-15s and kicking down doors and shooting people.

josh hawley says they're doing that to catholics. it is unbelievable. it's unbelievable. yeah, that they're doing this, willie. but, again, you had donald trump. not one of them complained when donald trump was pushing his attorney general to arrest his political opponent and their family two weeks before the presidential election. and these are the people that led the insurrection against the united states government from within the legislative branch. and they're the ones that are the most shocked and stunned. like, what a joke. >> yeah, i think they're probably not shocked and stunned, as we saw by the bad acting. we have to get a workshop. i don't know if rob reiner would volunteer his time, our great directors. they need to help in the performances. it's a bit much.

these are the very people, the very senators who cheered on the insurrection, who supported the people who went to the capitol and attacked the capitol. i won't even explain to you, if you were wondering what senator hawley was talking about there, it's a story about a man in pennsylvania who stands outside abortion clinics and harasses women as they go in and out. got into a shoving match with someone at one of them. he was charged with assault, acquitted later. it was the way he was arrested that josh hawley is talking about, that fbi agents showed up at hisguns to arrest him. they thought it was too much. if you're going about your life, your job, with your kids, you might in the know about that, but it's something that has consumed certain corners of cable news and the internet. that's what he brought to the hearing with the attorney general yesterday. >> wow. >> seizing on these people, these incidents to make a larger point, in their eyes, about the weaponized department of justice. >> again, the very people who pushed and pursued an

insurrection against the united states government. and i do wonder, and i've always wondered this, but why didn't they get investigated? why didn't members of the house that knew what was coming. >> remember the hours? >> the ones that gave the tours, the ones that wore the vests, the ones that brought guns january 6th because they knew there would be trouble, why didn't the justice department go after them? i still want to know. i said it after the day after, sort of screamed it the day after. why aren't these people who knew about the insurrection and were part of the insurrection, why haven't they ever been charged? >> it seems to be a good question. >> i mean, i understand there are a lot of people that think you should overthrow the federal government. apparently the 40% who still support donald trump. i mean, i think donald trump is going to win the republican

nomination, which means the republican base supports the overthrowing of the federal government. >> election denialism. >> it's the same thing. if you overthrow -- if you want to overthrow an election just because your side loses. >> yeah. >> by the way, the more i see, the more i read, i talk to people, they don't care. they don't care that donald trump tried to overthrow american democracy. they don't care he tried to throw out a presidential election. they don't care that he wanted to terminate the constitution of the united states. this, democrats, is who you're going to face. >> yeah. >> and if he gets elected, you know, because everybody is talking about desantis. i don't see it. i just don't see it. i think desantis is going to melt if he goes up against donald trump on the debate stage. there's going to be a guy who, if he gets elected, bar the

door. he's already said he wants to terminate the constitution of the united states. republicans love him. he's already tried to overthrow american democracy, and republicans still love him. he's already tried to arrest his political opponent, like they do in banana republics. with two weeks remaining, yelling at his attorney general to arrest his political opponent and his family, two weeks before the election. everybody love loves him in the republican party. this is the ongoing threat to american democracy. i'll tell i don't what, mika, it's frightening. >> it is. >> it's frightening. >> he has proven time and time again, we could spend an hour going through all the different ways he has proven he will do anything to win re-election. he is running from the law, now winning re-election is the only way to get away from that. >> yeah. >> on top of it, there is an

entire ecosystem that supports this, in politics and media. >> especially in media. they just lie. >> so -- >> they just lie and lie and lie and lie. >> and de -- >> then go, oh, look at the bird over there! look at the bird over there. the energy department has low confidence that maybe, maybe there was a leak from a chinese lab. look at the bird over there. don't look at us. don't look at us lying day in and day out to our viewers about the stolen election, which is what they did day in and day out and day in and day out. along with joe, willie and me, we have -- >> look at the bird over there. be distracted by what we are doing at fox. >> columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. former aid to the george w bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. host of "way too early," white

house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. joe is feeling better today and is back. >> i'm feeling fine. it's just, elise jordan, you know -- >> here we go. >> -- we used to say of a certain democratic president, you know, the end of the '90s, all republicans did, he has no shame. he should be dignified. he should resign. he has no shame. that's all. bill bennett would write books about values, and others would write books that said, "when character still counts" and "how could bill clinton ever be president of the united states? he has no character." you can't be a good president if you're not a good man. do you know -- yes, you know be because you were in my party -- that's all people talked about all the time. now, they all lie. they all lie. they talk to each other in a little group and then go out and all lie on tv.

they all lie in committee hearing meetings. they all lie for a man who has said, and he can't lie his way out of this because he wrote it, he wants to terminate the constitution of the united states. and this republican party that was so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened about bill clinton, they are going to nominate him. he is going to run for president, and they're all going to get behind him again. >> but, joe, what's so funny about that almost, if you know the destruction of democratic norms, if there is anything humorous about that at all, is that most of those republicans do not want donald trump back. yet, they are such wimps that they're going to just go along with it. he'll probably end up in exactly the same point. at least in the 2016 primary, you would have republican opposition candidates going up against donald trump and trying

to take him on and attack him. this time, you just see everyone tiptoeing. ron desantis sure isn't trying to land any punches. donald trump is already going out against him and trying to, you know, get some kind of response. occasionally, he'll get a little bit, but not, you know -- ron desantis is trying to stay away. they know donald trump can get gloves on them and permanently wound them. even after january 6th, they won't take another attack. >> we'll see that dynamic on display this week at cpac kicking off, and all these candidates are skipping this event just outside of washington, d.c. with the exception of nikki haley, she'll be there. donald trump is speaking saturday night. this is, in many ways, what his team is perceiving as the launch of his campaign. he's been off to a faltering start to this point. a significant piece of the republican party is firmly in his grip. certainly, right now, strategists both sides of the party, yes, the anti-trump

movement, if you will, on the republican side seems to be coalescing around desantis for the time being. unclear if that'll stay there. more candidates jump in, the better it is for trump. right now, trump is, david ignatius, at this moment e early march 2023, with all the caveats that we're a long way from the election, but he's the favorite. he is the clear favorite. it seems, to joe's point, that it doesn't matter what he's done, he's the guy. nothing can knock him off. and there is a growing belief that even some of the legal peril might help his standing within the republican party. he can point to, as we heard the groundwork being laid yesterday from his friends in the senate, bias in the federal government and the justice department to try to bring him down. >> well, heaven forbid, if his legal troubles end up being a positive came pain issue for him, we're really in worse shape than joe said. the thing i'm finding troubling is just a few months ago, at the time of the midterm elections, i think it was widely said -- i

certainly said it -- that crazy is out. the country is getting sick of crazy politics. extreme candidates, extreme election denier views, threats to topple election monitoring systems, that was out. the more sensible people in the center of the two parties were doing better. now, we have this circus with josh hawley and ted cruz with the most outrageous charges. it's amazing to see probably the most mild mannered person in washington, merrick garland, our attorney general, fending off these almost hysterical claims from republicans. what makes me sad is if it is true that crazy is back, crazy is popular again, we're in trouble. >> joe -- >> it is. >> -- there has been a lot of wish casting among republicans.

i think ron desantis is the guy, or candidate x and y finally turns the corner for us. there will be, as john said, this other group of republicans, not as cpac, they'll be at the breakers with the club for growth down in palm beach with a bunch of fundraisers. i guess plotting, figuring out, how do we run against donald trump? if you look at the rolling for all that wish casting, it's just not even close right now. by the way, desantis isn't even in the race. it's not close. it's donald trump. for all the hopes, even among many republicans publicly now, and many privately, that they've turned a corner, that he is in the rear-view mirror, it's just not happening. it's not clear who the person is who can turn the corner for them. >> ron desantis doesn't want to cross donald trump. >> no. >> because he knows if he did, what happened to the last governor from florida that ran against donald trump in 2016? what happened to him?

ron desantis doesn't want to cross donald trump. if you're a politician or a boxer, whatever you are, if you are a wide receiver against a cornerback, you line up and go, oh, i can beat this guy. you can just tell. you can just tell looking at ron desantis, he doesn't want to cross donald trump. certainly not on the debate stage. that's just not going to end well. so, the republicans, because they don't have what it takes, i won't use the word, there's not a republican who has what it takes to cross donald trump, he'll win the nomination. crazy will be back. i mean, that is going to be the new fall color. old is new again, right? they'll be wearing that another year, through 2024. >> too early on nauseous. >> let's figure this out. what's going to happen? oh, they're going to lose the

general election again. who could have ever seen that coming? >> don't want to take that chance. >> they do. they're going to take the chance because nobody has the -- strength, we'll just say strength. nobody has the strength -- >> thank you. >> -- to take donald trump on. >> okay. >> so they'll lose in '24. like they lost in '22, '21, '20, '19, '18, '17. are you picking up a trend here? >> i'm feeling like we're going to go to break. nothing got done in block. >> no, we've established that crazy -- >> is back. >> -- is back. >> yeah. >> and that the republicans lose. what do they learn from that? nothing. they double down. >> a lot of hot stove, hand on the hot stove 50 times. how many times do you burn yourself? >> ah, my hand. they keep doing it. >> skin graph, touch again.

>> david ignatius, we're going to raise it up, right? >> okay. >> when they go low, we go high. >> uh-huh. >> we're going to talk to david ignatius. he's got this great column about what joe biden can do to help the relations with china. >> oh, okay, that's true, we can do that. >> even make a death-defying train ride. he can do this inside the oval office. >> okay. when we come back, we'll go high, okay? >> i like it. >> talk to david about his new article, about working with china. >> can i see the ivy league republicans again? >> no, okay. that's such a -- >> i don't know. >> such an embarrassment to these universities. i mean, are they bragging that these people graduated from yale and harvard. >> i don't think they are. >> honestly, i understand why my father turned down going back to harvard. >> here it comes. >> it's coming, yeah. hey, we're not heilemann. you can put it up. we're here. the graphic up. >> there it is. >> are you having to paint it?

okay. >> they have to repaint the whole thing. >> look at that, okay. >> mm-hmm. >> very good. >> thanks, yale. thanks, harvard. thanks, stanford. thanks, ron desantis. >> populist guy from -- >> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> oxford. >> marjorie taylor greene. >> by the way, he talks like this. i like the cold cup. a dog don't hunt like that. >> and get me a latte, please. >> a dog don't hunt like that. in 2014, he was like, i am voting for senator john kerry. because i am a democrat, and i believe he is the best for louisiana. he doesn't talk like that anymore. >> i know. it changed. it changed depending on his mood. >> that dog gunna hunt. >> let me tease. >> okay. >> marjorie taylor greene blames president biden for the deaths of two young men from fentanyl. >> that's terrible. >> what happened? >> joe biden, you must -- oh, wait a second. >> wait a minute. they died during the trump

administration. >> oh. >> how president biden is responding to that. >> i would have never thought that she didn't actually do her research, whether it was on that or jewish space lasers. >> stunning. plus, a u.s. pharmaceutical giant is slashing the cost of insulin, and the biden administration is taking a victory lap on that. also ahead, jury deliberations are set to begin today in alex murdaugh's high-profile double murder trial in south carolina. a live report -- >> sincere when he is trying like that. he could use on acting lessons, too. >> that was rough to watch. we'll get a live report from outside the courthouse. and a look at how congress is taking action after the toxic trail derailment in ohio, which is nearly four weeks ago now. and this programming note. next wednesday, joe and i will be live from abu dhabi, where i will be co-moderating an iconic conversation, along with hillary clinton. we'll speak with gloria steinem,

billie jean king, and the first lady of ukraine, olena zelenska, to discuss their accomplishments in the battle for women's equality. watch this presentation next wednesday at 7:00 a.m. eastern, only right here on "morning joe." you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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craniectomies, i was laying there. she'd come in and do things i don't think you learn in nursing school. [ laughter ] >> is it over yet? >> that was funny. imagine how much joe biden has been through. it is incredible. >> sounds like it. >> stop it. that was funny, and that's all it is. >> yes. we are raising it up this block. you need to zip it. david ignatius, please help me here. in your latest piece for "the washington post," you offer the white house a suggestion for cooling down rising tensions with china. writing, in part, quote, there

are different ways of showing presidential courage. one is getting on a train to visit kyiv in the middle of a war. another the picking up the phone and calling xi jinping at a time of sharply weakening tensions. it wouldn't win president biden popularity at home, and it'd give republicans talking points, but it's the right thing to do. the tension involves the u.s. intelligence reporting that china might supply russia with ammunition to sustain its flagging war with ukraine. officials tell me china hasn't sent the weapons yet. if it does, biden will have to take sharp countermeasures. that's why biden should take that call to beijing now. >> david, first of all, republicans are going to criticize joe biden if you wear -- >> he doesn't care. >> based on the color of his

tie. who gives a damn about what republicans say. we're worried about america and what's best for america. it seems to me, if we could talk to the soviet union during the cold war, we should be talking to china, especially with the range of issues coming up. also, really quickly, a heartening "washington post" editorial on the first china -- the bipartisan china committee that -- i'm sorry. i forget who is running it right now. >> mike gallagher. >> mike gallagher. they're doing it right. they understand the threat coming from china and really seem to be doing it right. we can do two things at once, right, david? >> so i think that puts it exactly right. mike gallagher is an outstanding legislator. he is leading a genuine bipartisan effort. the one thing you find agreement among republicans and democrats in washington about these days

is china. china is becoming an increasing competitive threat. got that. as you say, i think that's a good i worry that in the clima where bashing china is the best politics there is, the president may be checked from doing what's necessary at a time when the u.s./china relationship really is deterioraing in ways that are harmful to our country, also china, but we worry about the united states. i was struck when biden made his now famous trip to kyiv, about what he really represents in the public mind, in the united states and around the world. he is this mature, statesmanlike person, who has the courage to go to a place that's under fire, and do the right thing. embrace a leader, president zelenskyy, who is fighting with his country for things, doing the right thing in american

politics often is complicated. for biden to reach out to china and say, "let's talk about what's going on," would be unpopular with house republicans, republicans generally. he ought to do it anyway. the reason is, he is the steward of our country's interest at a time when this confrontation with china is beginning to be something that i think is going to be costly to us down the road. we worry about appearing weak to china. we have vastly more military power than all our adversaries combined. the level of military strength -- i travel the world with our military. it is overwhelming, it knocks you out. we ought to realize how powerful we are. there was a hope that secretary blinken would be in beijing, talking with the chinese leadership. the chinese wanted that. it got blown up byincident.

i think there's a way, starting with the president, to put this back on track. it'll be a good thing. that's the purpose of this article, basically to do is simple, direct, right thing. that's joe biden' brand. >> i couldn't agree more. there are a lot of people, including some we played clips of at the top of the show who said they would prefer our military to be more like the russian military. that tells you all you need to know about them, jonathan lemire. david is exactly right. what do we have to worry about, looking weak? we have the strongest military over the rest of the world. at any time in the history of the world, we are strong. we are powerful. we are capable of doing just about whatever he want to do as a nation. our president can pick up the phone and start an active

dialogue with the leader of china. not because it is in china's best interest but because it is in our best interest to try to do everything we can do to avert the next crisis. by the way, the global economy depends on the united states and china figuring out, like, how to work together. environmental issues, the same. military strategic conflicts, they're averted -- better chance of being averted if we're talking to each other. >> the confrontation between the governments ceased in the wake of speaker pelosi's visit to taiwan, but restored when president biden and xi jinping met on the sidelines of the g20 in bali. there had been the hope for a return to constructive dialogue. recent events have strained things again. the spy balloon, of course.

these bellicose warnings from the u.s. is telling the world, we believe china might be considering sending lethal aid to moscow. i spoke to a senior u.s. official last night, and they have no evidence that's happened yet. to the point of tension, just now, the g24 meeting, beijing signed on with moscow, blasting the u.s. warnings to them. we also, to david's point, have a little news right now about the power of talking to each other. secretary of state blinken had his first conversation with foreign minister lavrov in months at the g20. just happened now. it was a 10-minute conversation. a state department official tells us that blinken told lavrov the united states will, of course, continue to support ukraine. urged russia to return to the new s.t.a.r.t. nuclear arms treaty, and said russia should release paul whelan, the former marine still in custody there. a little bit of dialogue between lavrov and blinken. the first time the russian and u.s. governments had any conversation on this level in

quite some time. unclear, willie, if this will lead to further decisions. >> a rare face-to-face in the midst of the last year of war there. we'll get a readout on that this morning. elise, on the question of china and the united states, richard haass was here yesterday. he testified a couple days ago in front of the house intelligence committee. he was struck, and said so on the air, by the level of antipathy to china from republicans and democrats. there is open hostility, which flies in the face of what david is suggesting in his piece. the better way to go about this is pick up the phone and talk to beijing. >> that's what i want to ask david. because of the recent news of department of energy, their estimation and fbi director chris wray about the possibility of a lab leak in wuhan, that didn't just happen in a vacuum. the timing is interesting at this moment of increased hawkishness among some members of congress.

i'm just curious, what are you hearing about the timing of those allegations coming public? >> elise, this question of how covid began has been an intelligence puzzle that has been continuous. i'm not sure this was deliberately timed for this particular moment. there are a lot of people working this conspiracy area 24/7. i wrote early on that there are questions about the original hypothesis, that this was wet markets and people went in and bought animals that somehow had been contaminated by bats. i've never been sure that was right. i think it is possible that there was a leak in one of the labs. it's near wuhan where the disease began. that doesn't mean, as so many republicans have implied, that this was a deliberate leak, then they imply of a manmade

coronavirus that has been so deadly. you know, bashing china is good politics right now. whenever you have a situation like that, let's swing at the pinata, bam, let's do it again, it makes it difficult for the diplomacy our country needs to be effective in the world. the whole purpose of our being so strong militarily is that it enables diplomacy. it doesn't provide a ubstitute. it enables strong diplomacy. that's why it is a good time for biden to reach out, not because we are weak, we are strong. >> exactly. >> that's the thing, david. we had to deal with the russians after they invaded hungary, after they invaded check czechoslovakia, afghanistan. we still had to deal with them because we were stronger and, ultimately, we won. there's no doubt, xi is getting more autocratic.

he is weakening himself and his country every year that goes by. you're right, as far as the lab leak, i'll say what i said a year ago and two years ago, we don't know. we just don't know if it was a lab leak. when republicans say china did it, though, as a bioweapon, i'll say what i said in 2021, we don't know. there's no evidence it was a bioweapon. it could be a lab leak. we have the fbi and the energy department with a low level of confidence. then we have intel agencies who said, no, they didn't think it's that. david, how do we know unless we get cooperation from china? maybe we get a better chance of getting cooperation with china, getting the answer, if our president picks up the phone and talks to 'em.

>> maybe. i don't want to overstretch the benefits of the phone call. you know, when we have a chinese side who defects from the wuhan institute of virology, maybe we'll get a better idea of what happened. all these intelligence agencies looked at what evidence there is. the one thing they are really quite certain of is that this was not a manmade virus. this was not a deliberately leaked bioweapon. that theory, which is the scariest one, they looked at and conclusively rejected. exactly how this happened i think is important for us to eventually know. as anything in intelligence, you need the person who knows who can help you reconstruct. >> david ignatius, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. >> david was very patient. >> very elegant, an erudite.

>> lifted us up. >> good to see you, david. thank you so much. say hi to your dad for us. russia was once considered a leading suspect in a string of mysterious attacks on american diplomats and cia officers overseas. we're going to tell you what intelligence officials are now saying about any linking between foreign adversaries and the so-called havana syndrome. plus, dhs investigators looking into labor violations are calling in the justice department to figure out how children from central america wound up working in dangerous jobs in slaughter houses across the u.s. nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley joins us with an exclusive update on that ongoing story. we're back in just a moment.

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sun is up over the united states capitol at 6:48 in the

morning. we have an update on a story we've been following for several days now. nbc news homeland security correspondence julia ainsley joins us now with exclusive new reporting on the department of homeland security widening now its investigation into migrant children found working dangerous jobs at slaughterhouses. julia, good morning. you've been on this story from the very beginning. what do you have new today? >> well, it's not an isolated i said incident, willie. when the officials went to this grant in nebraska, they found two dozen children cleaning up blood and animal parts off the slaughterhouse floors. they found more than 100 children working for that one company. now, what we're learning is that the fbi, along with dhs, is investigating multiple companies who may have brought in children who were part of a smuggling ring. this would be they're looking at smugglers and whether or not they brought children from central america, provided them with the ids that ended up getting them these jobs, and put them to work in slaughterhouses across america. the companies themselves aren't

yet targets of this investigation. look, how do children as young as 13 end up in these jobs? it's very similar, the pattern in all the companies. now, they're starting to ask questions. >> that's the thing so many people i've heard from following your reporting are so shocked by. over the last week or so, they've said, how does the company not know? boy, that kid looks like he or she is 13 or 14 years old. too young to be here anyway. >> the labor investigators who went inside the plant, which they said was so loud, you can't call a name, you have to shine a flashlight to get someone's attention. they could tell. those are adults cleaning, but some of these are young children. we blurred their faces. they said it was obvious. former employees. here you go, that's one of the employees. you can tell from the stature. we've also seen former employees say, somebody would say they're 18 or maybe 30 because they have fraudulent documents. a lot of times, american citizen

papers, they're giving identification. you can tell they're not 18. the companies can still be compliant through the federal system, but it doesn't catch that this person is clearly not who they say they are on their id. >> what are the next steps of this probe? right now, it is focusing on a strugglers. how are they tracing that path, and then could these companies at some point face legal jeopardy? >> they could. if they knowingly were part of this ring. i think right now, what they're trying to figure out is, were these children all exploited by a similar network? we've seen in the past, some of these investigators who worked cases like this before, say sometimes there will be a fee for service. a smuggler will charge a family a fee to get them across the border, put them to work, and then that salary the child is making goes to pay that debt back. but what they are also investigating is whether or not any of the employees, not necessarily the companies at large, whether or not there were employees who knew about this. perhaps charging a fee for service, charging migrants more

to get a job or garnishing their wages if they know they're illegal. that's also happened in the past. >> i just want to say, it's time to think about breaking up big ag. this could unite the right and the left. this is atrocious. there are horrible incidents in the meat packing industry through covid and now this. how did this come to light? did teachers notice these children were going to school during the day and going at night and working these horrible jobs? >> the heartbreaking thing is how long there were signs but how long it look for anything to happen. going back to 2016, there were teachers who reported a little girl coming to school with burns on her arms. they thought it might be child abuse. it was from the chemicals from cleaning these plants at night. children were falling asleep in class. school officials told the labor department, it is common knowledge, the kids are coming from the plant to the local middle school in nebraska. labor department says it takes a

cooperation of the companies. pssi, the original company we featured, says they've been cooperative. the nvrg investigators said whey showed up with a warrant, it took over an hour. they saw supervisors deleting things off the children's phones. they're alleging they interfered in this case. it's a matter of people noticing and sometimes it's hard to notice what goes on in your own communities in the dead of light. >> it is just coming to light now. is it fair to say this is probably still going on in meat packing plants right now, this morning, somewhere in the united states? >> i think that's a very strong possible. in fact, i asked the labor department, how do we know these same children didn't walk down the treat and get another job or end up in another town? they said, we don't know. we can't track the children. that's why this investigation is so wide. it's not just nebraska. it's not just this one company. it's nationwide. but they're really looking at how these children end up in the meat packing industry, an industry so few americans want to take jobs in. >> glad you're shining a light on this. excellent reporting on this story from nbc news homeland security correspondent julia

ainsley. joule stay on it. we'll check back. >> thank you. a look at some of the stories making front pages across the country. lawmakers in michigan are working to pass gun control reforms in response to the deadly mass shooting at michigan state university. we'll be joined by two former republican congressmen from michigan who are supporting the measures. it's all ahead on "morning joe." if your business kept on employees through the pandemic, getrefunds.com can see if it may qualify for a payroll tax refund of up to $26,000 per employee. all it takes is eight minutes to get started. then work with professionals to assist your business with its forms and submit the application. go to getrefunds.com to learn more. known as a loving parent.

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welcome back to "morning joe." live look at the white house. few minutes before the top of the hour. time for a look at the stories making headlines in morning papers across the country. we begin in new hampshire. "the concord monitor" has a feature on hospitals struggling to fill vacant positions as they deal with a higher demand of patients. officials say three locations in the concord hospital system are

so full, they're usually about 30 patients waiting for beds at any time. they're calling on state lawmakers to pass legislation that would increase medicaid reimbursements and establish a licensing process for private agencies that provide temporary nursing staff. >> is that for covid, upper respiratory things? >> addiction issues, as well. "the jackson sun" reports the governor of tennessee will sign a bill that bans some drag shows. the legislation prohibits adult-oriented entertainment deemed harmful for children from taking place on public property where a child might be. it specifically mentions exotic dancers and female or male impersonators. it'd be up to it shall. >> they do that in parking lots or something? why do they need to pass this bill now. >> it'd be up to local prosecutors to determine how to

apply the law. a first offense would be charged as a misdemeanor. second offense would be a felony. >> well -- >> "the engine river press journal" leads with a push from florida lawmakers to pass the death with dignity act. the legislation was recently filed in the state senate, and it would give terminally ill patients the option to end their lives with prescribed medication. it sets exact rules and conditions for people to be eligible to receive the lethal drug. and "the standard times" has a front page feature on a massachusetts school district that is joining a lawsuit against social media companies. the suit is filed against the company parents of facebook, instagram, snapchat, tiktok and youtube. lawyers argue there's been an increased rate of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders among kids and teens because of their overuse of these platforms. that is an ongoing conversation on this show. >> it really is.

>> i couldn't agree more. >> i couldn't agree more. willie, the story about the right to die with dignity reminds me of a conversation that mika and i had a couple days ago. she called -- she came in and goes, by the way, you need to sign -- i've got a living will. i don't want to linger. just boom, whatever. then she said, and i'll be yours. i said, no way. brzezinskis are tough. if you have a flu for two or three weeks, boom. >> come on. >> maybe it's not that bad. >> no. >> but you guys are -- >> i would not do that. >> you guys are efficient. i don't know about that stuff. my god. >> i just like your pillow talk about end of life issues. >> i know. >> first of all, willie, i think this is a conversation we need to have more. we should have it here on "morning joe." i think we talk a lot about -- >> let's talk about baseball. >> no, i think that there aren't enough conversations about how to die with dignity, how death

is handled. i learned so much through the passing of both my parents. i think it is actually a conversation we need to have because there's so much to learn and so much to share so it isn't a traumatic experience for families going through it. there's so many amazing options. with jimmy carter choosing hospice, for example. a lot of other people having options like what florida is looking at, the death with dignity act. >> right. >> it really is something that i think is not talked about enough. >> it's really important. >> it is. >> i agree with you. >> you're scared of me. >> i'm not scared of you. i can read the audience. read the room, mika. talking at it at 10:01. >> we should do a segment on it. this is important. >> i think florida would be a great state for them to pass a law like that and other states. >> jonathan lemire. >> older populations. by the way, willie, we were not talking about this last night. >> it's health care. >> we were actually, you know,

we talked about, let's see, 1923. oh, my gosh. >> really changing the subject. >> still not home. he's still not home in 1923. >> yeah, i'm done with it. >> shrinking is amazing. i've not seen the "mandalorian" yet. last night, we saw the beginning of -- don't let the kids in the room when you turn this on "babylon." brad pitt. >> oh. >> margot robbie. >> sure. >> she is amazing. >> haven't seen it. >> yeah, well, keep the kids out of the room when you do see it. yeah, those two were amazing, amazing actors. >> okay. way to change the subject. >> i have no doubt. i have not seen it. have you guys seen snit. >> no. >> no. >> kind of crazy. >> jonathan lemire, elise jordan still with us. joining the conversation, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. thank you for being with us,

mike. >> mike and jonathan, i get to see the red sox play, it was a couple nights ago. hope springs eternal. first of all, kluber, what a pro. he drives across the state and, like you said, mike, a lot of veterans wouldn't have done that to pitch. he pitches two great innings. actually saw him crack a smile, which kluber doesn't usually do. he seems to have his headspace in a good place. allen had a good night. that guy talking to the fans, a joyful presence there. there's a couple interesting moves here. i think, you know, everything falls in place, we could be within five games of the orioles for fourth place by the end of the season. >> orioles might win the division. >> orioles are pretty good. good job rebuilding that team. you know, joe, it's the first week in march. hope springs eternal. there's no doubt about it. it's just great to see the

baseball back. you are right, we could have a good run, or we could play predictably .500 baseball for the summer. we're going to find out. that's the joy of doing it, the difference between baseball and every other sport is they're like "morning joe," they do it every day. they play every day. >> thanks to the pace of play changes there, they do it a lot quicker than we do every day. >> good shot. >> this is the time, joe, you and i talked about this, mike, too, we spent all offseason being pretty angry, and rightly so, how they handled the offseason. but this is the time of year i couldn't start to tal well, they got veteran this is the time of year where you start to say, hey, maybe we can do something. that lasts until the first week of april. >> yeah. >> willie, you probably have higher hopes for your yankees going into the spring. you have a pitching injury

already there. >> got to keep people healthy. can stanton stay healthy? keep judge in the lineup. lemahieu. orioles are tough and the jays. never forget about the jays. >> very good. you know, the end of the day, we fall back, i think jonathan is like me, we fall back on, we've won four world series championships in the last few. you've won how many? >> just one. >> just the one. >> yeah, '2009. my son, george geist, now 13, he was 3 months old the last time the yankees won a world series. >> amazing. >> 13? >> i know. that's the headline. >> i felt like playing a sarah mclaughlin song for you. >> thank you for your prayers. >> 27 world championships. you know, willie, it is depressing that with the speed of play picking up, you could almost watch two major league baseball games -- >> it's true. >> -- in the time it takes us to

do one show. >> joe, you're almost not kidding. they're down to about 2 1/2 hours on a major league game. >> i know. >> we're going four. a quick game, somebody who works quickly, couple 1, 2, 3 innings, two "morning joes." >> listen, you know what, i got a call from somebody in the front office couple weeks ago. said, what do you think about a fifth hour? >> no. >> listen. >> oh, no, no. >> listen. >> no. >> no mas. >> is there a white towel somewhere? >> "morning joe" saturdays now. >> i'm a freaking energizer bunny. we could do six hours. you may not. you can plop on the couch. i'm telling you, it's fine. we love this, guys. we should do it. i'm all for it. "morning joe" five. >> let's have a vote. one, two, three. okay, the nays have it. all right. >> i say yay.

>> all right. mika -- >> wow. >> -- why don't you just -- this is only -- we've only done one hour. >> okay. >> we have 14 more left. >> we're going to launch the second hour of "morning joe" right now. everyone, pull yourselves together. you can do it. let's turn to the news now. following the mass shooting at michigan state university last month, michigan democrats in the state legislature are moving quickly to advance a gun safety package with their new complete control of state government. the package hits on so-called common sense gun reforms that a majority of michiganders appear to agree with, according to a recent poll. the legislation includes safe storage penalties for gun owners whose firearms end up in the hands of minors. universal background checks for all gun purchases in michigan. and red flag laws for those who pose a risk to themselves or others. all michigan democrats are likely to support the legislation. it also has support from former

republican congressman dave trott and fred upton. they join us now. thank you for being on the show. >> fred, great to see you again, man. it has been too, too long. you know, we talk about it all the time on the show, that i know there are going to be some nra people that are going to say, oh, they're going after second amendment rights. oh, it's this, oh, it's that. the fact s fred, the overwhelming majority of people in the nra support universal background checks, support red flag laws, support the things this legislation does. >> well, you're exactly right, joe. both dave and i are supporters of the second amendment. you know what? after parkland, we saw your former governor, i don't know if you still live in florida or not, but ron desantis signed the red flag law into law. bingo. indiana, mitch daniels, mike

pence, current governor, they all support the red flag law. 19 states have it. there's due process, and it's that type of thing we need to try to curb some of these mass shootings that continue virtually every single day. but there's some other things we ought to do, too. every member of congress has a cell phone. guess what? if there is an active shooter, we get an amber alert right away for an active shooter. a lot of students at michigan state a couple weeks ago had that, but other folks, maybe professors, maybe folks in the neighborhood, small businesspeople, didn't have the signal. maybe would have saved some lives and gotten that guy a little earlier. >> nice to hear that from former congressman upton. but my question to you is, why does it seem the bulk of the republican party, the party that you represented in congress, the bulk of the republican party is adamant against the most common sense, easiest aspects to help

people out in terms of gun safety? universal registration, stuff like that, what's the deal there? >> no doubt -- >> oh -- >> go ahead, fred. >> go ahead. >> i think it's -- >> one of you take a shot, no pun intended. >> it's no doubt a result of the power that the nra and other gun groups have over the legislature and our members. it's unfortunate. if the nra and other gun groups took a minute to read the bills, 11 in total, they are all very thoughtful. the safe storage bill, for example, has a number of exceptions and exclusions, and in no way infringes on our second amendment rights. it's a knee-jerk reaction. for me, what's offensive is any time there is a mass shooting, our lawmakers say, it's not a gun safety issue, it's a mental health issue. we're not doing a great job of addressing our nation's mental

health issues, so we better try something else. >> former president trump appearing at cpac this week. polls suggest still very much his party, despite all that has happened. he, of course, has come out as a very strong supporter of the nra and opposes most of this sort of legislation. what do you make of where the republican party stands right now, and is -- do you see any hope on the horizon that it could cleave itself from donald trump? >> well, couple things. first of all, as you look at gun legislation, i think that even though we in the house passed last year a red flag bill, not a lot of republicans, i was among them that supported it, but it died in the senate. i think the prospects in this congress are pretty dim, particularly as we head to the '24 election. as we look at presidential election and jockeying of all the different candidates there, for trump, obviously, the more

that get in, the more the merrier for him. there were 17 folks that got in in 2016. he has continued his lock on 30% or 35% of that vote on the republican primary. majority still think they have a positive impression on him. if we see pence, nikki haley and tim scott and others get in, the better chance that he has. he still has a grip on our party, and we'll see where it takes us. he is going to be at cpac here in washington this weekend. a number of the other candidates, desantis and others, are avoiding it. but if they all get in, guess what? he's going to win the primary. >> congressman, what would it take -- and i'll ask both of you this -- what would it take to have a politically paletable

next step? >> if members recognize the overwhelming support for these common sense measures, i think while the republican members feel pressure from the nra and other gun groups -- for example, one gun group in michigan indicated any member who supports any of these bills will be subject to a recall. people in the legislature, and in congress for that matter, need to understand that the risk of doing nothing probably poses a greater threat to their job security than offending the nra at this point. if that happens, then you'll see bipartisan work on gun legislation. >> all right. former congressman dave trott and fred upton, thank you for being on the show this morning. good to see you both. as house republicans launch investigations into the origins of coronavirus, democratic congressman jared moskowitz of florida had this response to the republican chairman of the house oversight committee, james

comer, during a hearing on tuesday. listen. >> just want to relay something that was just stated during the roundtable. the doctor just said today at the subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic's roundtable, the following. i quote, the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic was the united states government. end quote. >> based on those comments, i, too, would like to get more information. i mean, was that person specifically talking about the misinformation that president trump put out about maybe putting light into the body could get rid of covid? or maybe using a horse tranquilizer to get rid of covid? was he talking about the misinformation about maybe we can do, like, a cleaning of the body, you know, as misinformation? so, you know, i'd like to find out the misinformation that was put out. you know, covid is going to go away in a couple months, that

misinformation. you know, there was a lot of misinformation that was put out. so i would love -- maybe we hold a hearing on that, mr. chairman, that'd be fantastic. i yield back. >> i mean, it really is. >> fabulous. >> it's unbelievable that you would have republicans talking about disinformation. i mean, again, the lack of just awareness of themselves. >> does his head hurt? >> the lies they have spread for years, that donald trump, their hero, has spread about clorox bleach, getting bleach into the body to clean it out. donald trump on january 24th -- >> not telling the american people. >> donald trump on january 24th of 2020, saying that president xi and china are doing a great job. they're being transparent, and they're helping us out. on behalf of the american people, donald trump thanks president xi for being so open about covid.

or when donald trump said it was one person coming in from china. soon, it'd be gone. then donald trump later saying it's a handful of people that are coming in. >> easter, we're going to open. >> and that he hears that when it gets warmer outside, it'll just go away. it's going to magically go. i mean, we could talk, and we have, for hours just quoting the misinformation. >> thanks, congressman comer. >> just talking about the lies. again, this is the, look at the bird over there. they get one thing they can try to grab hold to, one thing, and it's usually just a sliver of information. just a partial truth. they try to blow up, thinking that people are going to be stupid enough. it's a real insult to republicans that they're trying to talk to. that people are going to be stupid enough to look past

everything that's been in front of them for years, about all the lies donald trump pushed regarding covid. all the lies, all the whacked out conspiracy theories that trumpers have been pushing for years. it's really, seriously, they are without shame. >> it's been amazing in these early weeks of this new congress, with the republican majority in the house, to watch the extent to which republicans walk themselves into these conversations. which is, we want to focus on disinformation and misinformation. a democrat says, great, let's talk about that. we just heard that from congressman moskowitz. republicans saying, release all the tapes, videotapes, security footage from january 6th. you really want to talk about january 6th and what happened that day and your attempts to overturn a presidential election? i guess the answer to the question of why is, because, to many of these members who are just kind of political celebrities, it doesn't matter. because they're just speaking. they're preaching to the choir.

they can raise money by appearing to defend the people that they think they're defending or raising issues they think are important to their viewers or their podcast listeners or whatever their audience is. but as you've been saying for a long time now, if they really want to open these pandora's boxes again, those are conversations democrats are happy to have out in public. >> well, during a house homeland security committee hearing on tuesday, republican congresswoman marjorie taylor greene of georgia blamed a rise in fentanyl overdose deaths on joe biden's administration. >> fentanyl is now the number one cause of death of young americans ages 18 to 45. and this is unforgivable. the biden administration is responsible for this. they have blood on their hands because they refuse to secure our border. >> she also posted a clip on

twitter of a mother who testified at that hearing. the woman lost both of her sons to fentanyl overdoses, which marjorie taylor greene blamed on the biden administration. their deaths are, of course, tragic, but we will now fact check congresswoman greene's timeline. both men she referred to died in 2020 during the trump administration. cnn reporter daniel dale reached out about the error. he posted on twitter, greene's spokesman responded with explatives. you can see it on the screen. >> huh. still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> no, no, no. but if you look at that -- >> that's just -- >> i mean, mike barnicle -- >> that's the maga republican party. >> no one cares about your fact checking is another way of saying, do you think anybody cares about the facts? this is what the russians did. this is what they continue to do.

the russians actually call it firehose of falsehoods. the idea is to lie so much, you overwhelm your opponents. it's what hitler did throughout the '30s and into the '40s. they lied so much, they didn't expect people to believe every lie. they just wanted to numb them to the truth. so the truth just didn't matter. people gave up on actually trying to figure out what the truth was, and they just chose sides. that's exactly what's happening here. one lie after another lie after another lie by marjorie taylor greene, by certain networks out there, one lie after another lie, then they're desperate to try to find any excuse they can to distract from the fact that they've been caught red handed lying about covid, lying about the election, lying about the most important stories of our time. lying, saying that the united states military and soldiers and

troops are going to fly helicopters from afghanistan to the united states and attack trump supporters. lying and saying that the fbi is going to kick down doors. lying saying that the fbi is going to arrest people just because they voted for donald trump. these are the lies that my relatives, my friends are bombarded with. i wish i could say every night. but they hear the lies on podcasts. they hear the lies on talk radio. they see the lies online. then they watch the lies at night. they're just numb to it. they're like, eh, well, i'll believe it. why not? who can you believe? that's what they all say. oh, it's just so hard to figure out what's the truth now. i don't even watch the news anymore. but they do. they watch the propaganda. they digest the lies. then they give themselves an out

by saying, you know what? you know, it's too hard to figure out. all this, it's so confusing. everybody is saying different things. that is the goal of liars. that's the goal of propagandists. that's the goal of certain networks out there. that's the goal of podcasters. that's the goal of these people that are spreading trump's lies. they just want to numb the people. that's exactly what they have done. >> yeah, they have done that, joe. they've been very successful at doing it. you know, we began this morning in the 6:00 hour with a complete charade, play acting, performance art, senators hawley, cruz and kennedy grilling the attorney general of the united states. i have to tell you, it was, to me, personally, depressing to watch. as marjorie taylor greene is depressing to watch. all i could think of is looking

back at history, where is joseph welch when we need him? joseph welch was a lawyer from boston, massachusetts, who stood up in the mccarthy hearing and said to senator joe mccarthy who are conducting the hearings, which were kind of similar to what is going on today, the play acting, the charade, and most of all, to your point, the complete lies he told that got a grip on the american public in the early '50s. joseph welch, the lawyer, looked right at senator mccarthy and said, "have you no sense of decency, sir?" no sense of decency. and who has a sense of decency today? as i watched hawley and the others, cruz, kennedy, marjorie taylor greene, prattle on and on and on about their lies and misinterpretations of reality, you know, i'm wondering, where? where do they think the country

is? do they think about the country at all? what do they see when they look in the mirror? do they see their own ambition at the expense of the country? i think they do. >> yes. >> it is a damaging aspect. >> trumpy. >> they lie. they got caught lying about covid. they got caught lying about covid time and time again throughout 2020. they got caught lying about the election. they knew donald trump lost the election. all of these people knew donald trump lost the election. all of them. they all lie. to their constituents, to their listeners, to their viewers. they're liars. they know they're lying.

you the talk to them on the side where they'll tell you, yeah, he lost, then they'll go in front of cameras and say the opposite thing. or just look at their texts. they all knew he lost. yet, jonathan, they just keep lying. they can't stop it. you ask why. i don't know. i don't know how they do it burks they do every day. >> they continue to lie. politicians lie. media outlets lie. they continue to lie. it is, to obvious, their attempt to hold on to or regain some power. they see attempts for personal, perhaps, ability to make more money out of it, whether because it is podcasts and such. certainly, it is fundraising and making them stars. it's about the headline. it's about owning the libs, getting the click. that's what the governing o ethos of some, not all, but so many of the republican party has

become. it's been that way for a while, and trump accelerated it. we are now confronted, of course, with him back on center stage with the lies, with the lies about covid, with the lies about the election, the lies about the insurrection. he still, of course, has not fully come to grips with what happened. this is where the republican party finds itself as we enter another election cycle. democrats trying to present another stable, somber, sober case. >> by the way, the more they lie, these members lie about the election being stolen, the more they lie about covid, the more they lie in defense of donald trump and his cockamamy theories that lose elections and have every year, the more money they raise from contributors. the more money that pours into their campaign accounts. >> it's an ecosystem they've created. >> yeah. where lying is rewarded. >> it's amplified. >> yeah. still ahead on "morning joe" the latest on a double murder

case that's drawn national attention. jury deliberations are expected to begin today in the alex murdaugh trial. >> speaking of lying. >> live report from outside the courtroom. plus, a pennsylvania man is in fbi custody this morning after trying to bring an explosive device onto an airplane. we'll have the details of that story ahead. and a new report from the u.s. intelligence community is looking at what is likely behind the mysterious havana syndrome. ken dilanian joins us with more on that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪ get directv with a two year price guarantee.

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the double murder trial of alex murdaugh could be soon headed to the jury.

the former lawyer did not kill his wife is what the defense is trying to prove. we go to walterboro, south carolina. catie beck has been covering this case from the very beginning. good morning. what should we expect today? >> reporter: yeah, good morning, willie. the defense will present their side of things, but yesterday, the prosecution in closing painting alex murdaugh as a person of prominence who simply could not live with the shame of his own bad decisions. they say in the months leading up to the murders, murdaugh was about to be exposed potentially for stealing millions of dollars. they say it was a mounting pressure that his wife and son ultimately paid the price for. prosecutors telling the jury on wednesday, alex murdaugh is a skilled liar who murdered his wife maggie and son paul as his world was falling apart. they say the former attorney was facing questions about stealing

millions from his firm and clients. a civil suit seeking millions from him after his son, paul, was involved in a deadly boat accident. >> the illusion of his life was about to be altered. he couldn't live for that. >> reporter: in a passionate closing argument that lasted hours, the lead prosecutor painting murdaugh as a liar and killer who manufactured an elaborate coverup. they say he was unable to refute a piece of evidence, plaing him at the scene of the crime. in this video, he was heard speaking at the kennel. he repeatedly lied to investigators about being there, blaming an opioid addiction which he said caused paranoia. >> why in the world would an innocent, reasonable and loving husband and father lie about that? >> reporter: jurors walked the

area near the kennels, the feed room where paul was killed, and outside of the murdaugh home, even seeing a bullet hole in this window. during the trial, murdaugh repeatedly denied killing his wife or son. the state also suggesting in the minutes after the murders, murdaugh made multiple calls and texts on the way to his mother's house to manufacturealibi. among those, he called his friend, chris wilson, who recently sat down with craig. >> how hard was it to agree to testify against your old friend? >> it is hard because there's a relationship there that i thought was based on trust and respect. all those things that when you find out it's not, it is hard to relive that. >> reporter: prosecutors telling jurors, murdaugh lied to everyone he ever knew. >> fooled maggie and paul, too. they paid for it with their lives.

don't let him fool you, too. >> reporter: in another dramatic moment during that closing, prosecutor creighton waters describing maggie murdaugh's final moments, saying she heard the gunshots and went running, running toward her baby, when she, too, was mowed down by the only person they know was conclusively there. willie. >> we'll be watching today. catie beck in south carolina. thanks so much. let's bring in msnbc legal analyst charles coleman. good morning. so much to talk about here. basically, what murdaugh has said on the stand is, i'm a liar. i'm a thief. i'm all these things. i'm not a great guy, but i'm not a murderer. i did not kill my wife and my son. one of the things that some skeptics of the prosecution's case have said is, i don't quite see the motive here yet. >> right. >> i don't see why this man could look his child in the eye and shoot him in the head, effectively. have they done a good enough job of establishing motive? >> no, willie, they haven't. when you were talking about

trial work, you're ultimately talking about competing narratives. the prosecution wants to address a narrative that is not going to paint a defendant in a very good light. the defense wants to paint an opposite narrative, or at least do as much as they can to poke reasonable doubt in the narrative being advanced by the prosecution. the issue with this case from the start has been prosecutors have not been able to construct a cohesive narrative that's believable and makes sense to put in front of this jury. they doubled down on their mistakes during the trial by basically shifting their narrative in the middle of his cross-examination. all of these things have been mistakes. they may prove fatal to the prosecution's case. >> questions about putting mr. murdaugh on the stand. unusual in a murder trial like this. at the end of the day, will that end up being a good move for the defense? >> seems like it will. i think a lot of that has to do, again, with the way the prosecution went about this cross. when i saw that cross-examination, it looked more like a deposition. what i mean by that is, usually,

a cross is very tight. you ask very specific questions, leading questions to get very short answers. get in and get out. waters was allowing him to go all over the place in terms of adding context, explaining his answers. very, very unusual for a cross. because he is a trained attorney, he took it. he ran with it. he gave himself an opportunity to explain a lot of things that he would not have normally been able to under a usual cross. that ultimately played in the favor of the defense and may give the jury a reasonable doubt. >> not every day following it, but following it loosely, the aspect of not being able to provide the jurors with a credible motive for what happened is clearly a weak link. but the other aspect of it that is kind of intriging to me at least from a distance is the crime scene itself. i was wondering, did they so

screw up the crime scene that they didn't have enough definitive dna evidence or whatever to link him to being there and perhaps killing both these people? >> mike, excellent point. one of the things that i saw, to be very ironic, was when the jury went to see the crime scene, ultimately, they were examining a crime scene that was more secure for them as jurors that had been secured in the wake of the actual crime itself. that was a huge problem that i had in terms of understanding how things were playing out. you're right, the lack of physical evidence, the lack of dna is a huge factor in terms of the prosecution and its hurdles. i think that's something that i expect the defense to actually pounce upon when they're talking about that during their summation today. i expect them to talk about the lack after actual concrete evidence that normally would be there if you're talking about a double homicide occurring on a scene. >> charles, a weapon hasn't been found, correct? >> correct. >> they have the casings that

match bullets that are used at their shooting range, but -- >> no. the other side to it is, you have to understand that there's testimony about casings being everywhere. this was a shooting family, a hunting family. they had guns. that's easily explained, at least to the point of reasonable doubt. it is important to understand that when you're talking about the jury and the questions, the jury is going to have to separate, do we believe him versus did the prosecution meet its burden? those are two separate questions. they're connected, but ultimately, the law says it is not necessarily about whether you believe him, it is whether the prosecution has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. >> charles, for the many people who just tuned into this case in the last week and a half since he took the stand and are kind of catching up on it, is there any other theory out there about who could have done this if it was not alex murdaugh? has anyone presented a different theory to the case? >> one of the things i saw from the forensic pathologist that defend for the defense that i thought was very helpful to their case is they introduced

formally this notion of a second shooter. there had been whispers, the trajectory of the bullets, it came from someone much shorter than do defendant. all of that had been floated. when that forensic scientist and that forensic pathologist took the stand and testified and said, i believe there may have been two shootings, i thought that was a really important point for the defense. now, it introduces the question of, well, he couldn't have done this by himself. we don't know if he can trust the prosecution's motive. again, all these things are reasonable doubt. >> reasonable doubt. we'll see that closing argument today. msnbc legal analyst charles coleman, i suspect we'll be talking to you a lot the next few days. thanks for being here. ahead, a string of frightening airline incidents overnight. two planes making emergency landings. in pennsylvania, one airport had to be evacuated partially after an explosive device was found inside checked luggage. new details next on "morning joe." cy box

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we're following a string of alarming airline incidents, including a fire inside a plane's cabin and a hidden explosive at an airport. nbc news correspondent emilie ikdea brings us more details. >> reporter: overnight, chaos and fear in the sky after two airlines made emergency landings. >> lufthansa, extreme turbulence. >> reporter: seven people were taken to the hospital after a lufthansa flight from texas to germany experienced significant turbulence and had to land at an airport. >> food flew everywhere, and it was scary for a little bit. >> reporter: earlier, a spirit airlines flight was diverted after a battery in an overhead bin caught on fire. >> a ton of smoke came out, so i yelled fire a few times. >> reporter: the cabin quickly filled with smoke. thanks to quick reaction from

those on board, the fire was extinguished and the plane landed safely in jacksonville, florida. >> there was a retired fireman that jumped up and flight crew came in. they got it put out. the flight crew did a nice job. >> reporter: ten people were transported to the hospital according to the rescue department. it comes amid a scare at a pennsylvania airport when a man, now detained, tried to bring an explosive device on board a plane headed to orlando. 40-year-old mark muffley checked his suitcase at lehigh international airport monday morning that contained a combustible device. an hour later when tsa agents screened the bag, it set off alarms. according to documents, agents found a circular compound containing a granular powder used in commercial grade fireworks. the device in the lining of the suitcase contained several fruzs. the fbi was called to the scene, and part of the airport was

evacuated. investigators say surveillance cameras captured this picture of muffley leaving the airport just after being paged to come to the security office. >> emilie ikdea with that report. coming up on "morning joe," we'll speak with the vice chair of the house democratic caucus, as his party works out a 2024 strategy at the annual house retreat. plus, a big get on a brand-new party leader in north carolina. the newly elected chair of the state's democratic party joins us next on "morning joe." i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at 4 weeks. skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor

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north carolina democrats have been on a losing streak. the party hasn't won a presidential or senate race since 2008, and republicans

currently have control of the state's senate house and supreme court. all of that has prompted a call by democrats there for new leadership, and joining us now the newly elected chair of north carolina's democratic party, anderson clayton. she is also the youngest state democratic party chair in the country. welcome to the show anderson, so what's it going to take to get democrats to start winning again in north carolina? >> yeah, thank you so much for having me. i'm excited to be on and grateful for the opportunity. i'm so thankful north carolina democrats for trusting me with this position. i really believe that the future of north carolina is for us to have boots on the ground across 100 counties. we need to be making sure that we're organizing everywhere and ensuring that folks from murphy are hearing the message of the democratic party and the good work we're doing for rural communities across our state and energizing our base to be able to get out and vote this cycle. we need you now more than ever, north carolina. >> so you mentioned rural

communities, which is one of the goals that you're looking at organizing and prioritizing on rural communities in north carolina, rebuilding the party infrastructure, and caring more about winning elections, which is usually on this show we talk about how republicans have gotten really good at losing, but in north carolina, it's definitely been democrats. start with rural communities. how do you -- tell me what the how is in refocusing on rural communities? >> yeah, i mean, i think a lot of people talk about how we need to win back these communities and we need to take control of them again. i do believe before we can ever talk about winning in these communities, we've got to talk about rebuilding trust in communities that feel like government has left them behind. indicates right now are working so hard for the american people and trying to really focus on the everyday issues that are impacting everyday folks. the american rescue plan and the

bipartisan infrastructure bill gave millions of dollars of investment into rural north carolina this year, and i want to make sure we're getting people to those city council meetings and county commissioner meetings and talking about where this money is going. democrats said hey, we believe you have a future 50 years from now and we want you to determine what that future is going to be and what it's going to look like, and you've got to have that emphasis on the ground. rural north carolina and rural america is not living. they are surviving, and they are doing everything they can just to stay afloat from week to week, from paycheck to paycheck, and the democratic party is helping and we need to make sure we have democratic messengers in all of our communities to make sure they hear that message. >> i see you went to app state, shoutout to yosef this morning. let's talk about north carolina. some people view it as a purple state. donald trump did win the 2020 election there, but just by a sliver, fewer than 100,000 votes. how are you viewing territory that can be gained by democrats in that state, in which

direction is it trending right now? >> yeah, i mean, i think that we planned to gain ground everywhere, and we have so much opportunity to do that. youth turnout, i tell people all the time, in north carolina hbc u-turnout was the lowest it's been since 2010, and we have so much ground to gain from energizing and engaging young voters, telling them here's the message and the future the democratic party is trying to offer you which is talking about clean energy and a good environment and climate change and every capacity of issue that we're worried about what's our future look like. democrats are delivering on that message. we've got to make sure people understand the policies and how they impact your everyday life. the affordable connectivity program that came down from the bipartisan infrastructure bill is $30 off a month of your internet bill. if you're 200 % below the poverty line. a lot of people are struggling and the price is going up, inflation going up, everything happening so quickly for us, we've got a lot of ground to

gain when we're talking about the policies that democrats are putting in place, and we need to make sure young people, people of color in our state understand we are trying to do everything we can to reach them and uplifting their voices right now. we know that democrats in north carolina need to see this party fight for them every inch of the way. we're fighting for your rights to exist to do perfectly. >> hearing you loud and clear. okay. chair of north carolina's democratic party, anderson clayton. thank you so much for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. i appreciate you too. >> great to have you on, congratulations for everything. still ahead, we'll look at the republican grand standing yesterday on capitol hill. wow, this was epic, when attorney general merrick garland went before the senate judiciary committee. plus, the latest u.s. intelligence on the mysterious

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i screwed up. download the app and earn mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck.

i screwed up. mhm. i got us t-mobile home internet. now cell phone users have priority over us. and your marriage survived that? you can almost feel the drag when people walk by with their phones. oh i can't hear you... you're froze-- ladies, please! you put it on airplane mode when you pass our house. i was trying to work. we're workin' it too. yeah! work it girl! woo! i want to hear you say it out loud. well, i could switch us to xfinity. those smiles. that's why i do what i do. that and the paycheck.

. i stand before you tonight as a proud deplorable, unlike some of the folks in washington, d.c., i'm talking about the cultured cosmopolitan goats milk latte drinking, avocado toast eaters. >> i'm a democrat, i support senator kerry. >> here's the tell -- >> see, you can tell he had a latte in the second one. >> here's the tell, he's talking about -- >> i love that foam on the latte. >> he's talking about things that i know nothing about like this goat's milk. like avocado -- wait, i'm trying to keep up. >> what is that? >> let me tell you something,

i'm tired of these charcuterie board eating -- >> come on. >> if i knew anything about french wines, i would like -- >> welcome back to "morning joe." >> no, we're not done with that. can we play that again? >> the second -- >> but you know why he knows that? >> why? >> he's an oxford boy, who's now trying to play -- >> not ole miss, not ole miss. >> here we've got our ivy league republicans and then you've got oxford. i think ivy league -- >> he likes his latte extra hot, with soy milk. >> goat's milk, i've never even heard of that. i don't know where he goes to get his coffee. but here he is again, it's a nice little progression. >> i stand before you tonight as a proud deplorable. unlike some of the folks in washington, d.c., i'm talking about the cultured, cosmopolitan

goat's milk latte drinking, avocado toast eating insiders elite. >> i'm a democrat. i support senator kerry. >> so is this what elites from oxford -- >> he knows because he was one. >> i know, that's what i'm saying. i've never even heard of this, willie, do elites from oxford have goat's milk lattes. >> avocado toast? >> avocado toast? is that what elites are doing these days? >> they don't have goat's milk at my stop and shop, and i don't think you can get it at the dunkin in your neighborhood, can you? >> you can get avocado toast at dunkin. >> in oxford, mississippi, these days probably could get goat's . you can go to fine dining, so we're not talking about oxford, mississippi, here, which is one of the great american small towns. >> that's true.

>> that's true. >> wow. >> small towns, but you believe that transformation, and they're all the same. >> it's painful. >> it's amazing that acting. i mean, you know, i don't know, willie, he may not need acting classes because for his audience, they don't know that you know he's like i am an oxford man. >> i'm voting for kerry. >> as an oxford man and a democrat, i'm supporting john forbes kerry. >> is there foam on that latte? >> i don't know. i know we've got to give hawley and ted acting lessons. i don't know about john kennedy. he's got that spiel down, doesn't he? >> well, you know, they get elected and reelected, the act is playing somewhere. i guess they don't need acting lessons from us. i do in the interest of full

disclosure want to thank you for leaving one pennant off kennedy's display there, from my dear friend in nashville. >> he did go vanderbilt, you get to go to the school in the hottest city in the country, you get s.e.c. sports with it. vanderbilt is the place to be. this has been a public service announcement. >> did none of those people go to alabama undergrad like me? >> state school guy from florida? >> i'm a state school -- no, no, no alabama. wow. >> no florida. that's painful. ahead this hour, we'll explain why we played that clip for you as if we already had. >> roll tide by the way. >> president joe biden delivered what felt like a 2024 campaign speech last night in baltimore. he was in town to speak to the house democratic caucus as the party works on its messaging to win back the house in 2024.

the president laid out what his administration has accomplished so far, and pushed lawmakers to remind americans about the party's legislative achievements. >> you know, we came in, the economy was in ruins. we were -- we had so many lost jobs and went beyond the pandemic. it started before that. but we can see it on your districts, those 12 million new jobs. they're real jobs, man. it means we created more jobs in two years than any other presidential term in american history. you created it, you did it. >> folks you all know how much we've gotten done, but a lot of the country still doesn't know it. that's why the big job in front of us is implementing the laws we passed so people start to see it in their lives, all the benefits that are there because you produced it for them. you stepped up and got it done.

>> vice chair of the house democratic caucus, congressman ted lieu of california. thanks for being here. you were there last night, you were there yesterday, a member of this caucus who has some thoughts and insights on what the plan is over the next couple of years here. what will you be focused on? what will democrats be focused on in the next two years to try to win back the house given that you have leadership and we've seen some of these committees now drilling down onto things like the weaponization of the fbi to use their term, things like disinformation during covid that we heard yesterday where you had democrats rebutting and saying okay, let's talk about disinformation from the former president during covid. what is your message, though, to win back the house? >> thank you for your question. two things, so first, president biden was fantastic last night, and he reminded us of the amazing work his administration and house democrats did last term. we put people over politics and

passed a series of transformative laws to help the american family such as the infrastructure law. while democrats are helping to rebuild roads, bridges, and highways, what are republicans focused on? and here's the second thing. they spent enormous congressional resources to do a congressional hearing to complain about twitter, so when we talk about how we implement the amazing laws that democrats lost and join the contrast with extreme maga republicans who focus on issues that american public don't care about right now. >> the president is going to release his budget next week. he's called for speaker mccarthy to put out his proposal as well. certainly this comes as a fight looms over the debt ceiling. the president spoke about that yesterday. he will again today when he meets with senate democrats. how worried are you, though, you look at your colleagues across the aisle that they will be willing to play partisan politics with the debt ceiling, and potentially send the nation hurdling over the cliff.

>> i'm very worried and disturbed. it is flat out unpatriotic and un-american to say we're going to risk defaulting on our debts. the full faith and credit of the united states of america should never, ever be questioned and it is highly disturbing republicans are doing this, and why are they doing this? they want to extract cuts to social security and medicare, republican senator ron johnson has called social security wrongfully a ponzi scheme, republican rick scott wants to eliminate all federal programs in five years including social security and medicare unless congress reauthorizes it. that's where the party is headed and democrats are going to stop it. >> congressman, politics has changed enormously over the last ten years. it's now largely a visual art. people hear about or see things on their phones, their ipads. yesterday was a fairly significant day i would think in politics due to eli lilly's pronouncement they're going to

reduce the cost of insulin and cap it at $35. some would point out that they did this under pressure with president biden pushing such a move, and mentioning it in the state of the union and things like that, and yet, it didn't get much of a ripple effect. it was out there as news yesterday and everything like that but has an enormous impact on millions of americans who view politics through what they see. bridges being built, construction underway and insulin costs reduced. how do you capitalize on the visual things about politics. >> that's a great question, and in this case we just have to keep repeating to the american people what actually happened, which is that democrats pass a law, the inflation reduction act that capped insulin at $35 for medicare recipients, and now eli lilly seeing this has decided to follow suit under pressure from the biden administration, and they're doing it for all

recipients, and as a result, want to save the american people a lot of money who use insulin, and something we have to keep repeating over and over again. these folks are also going to see it in their monthly costs. they have to pay less for insulin now because of what democrats and the biden administration did. >> all right. congressman ted lieu, thank you very much for being on this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks so much. jonathan lemire, we have some news, bbc breaking news, blinken and lavrov meet for the first time since the invasion. you talked about that, but some of the details are coming out. i'm sure you probably have some of this, but u.s. secretary of state antony blinken told his russian counterpart that the u.s. will support ukraine for as long as it takes in a conversation that lasted around ten minutes. blinken also, as you said before, said he should release paul whelan, and also talked

about the arms treaty. but it is -- it is interesting that, again, the message is being delivered. we're in it until the end for ukraine. >> yeah, so this is the g20 finance foreign minister's meeting in new delhi, india, they're the hosts this year. and it was not a formal meeting. the two men sort of just met on the sidelines. it was as you said, ten minutes. secretary blinken was able to deliver a few of the messages. he was keen to do, he sought out lavrov. they had this conversation. lavrov made no commitment to anything, of course, and certainly we previously denounced u.s.'s continued support of ukraine. so what remains to be seen and whether this will begin any sort of dialogue. last week of course we saw president biden go to europe, make that surprise visit to kyiv. give that thunderous speech in

warsaw. as much as almost a not celebration, but a commemoration of the ukrainian resistance that that was and the unity of that alliance, some hard days are ahead. the president said that, and there are some differing views within the alliance in europe as to whether putin should be offered any sort of off-ramp, whether or not -- how much longer can this full-on support go, and the german chancellor comes to d.c. tomorrow. he'll meet with the president at the white house. and he's a key figure in terms of trying to keep the germans in line, and pushing the support. we heard zelenskyy say germany should do more. look for president biden to push that case tomorrow. >> elise, i'm old fashioned. you talk to your friends, you talk to people who consider the united states their enemies, and you keep that engagement open, so i'm glad that blinken is talking to lavrov.

i hope biden calls xi. it is that sort of engagement may not play well wherever, you know, john kennedy is putting on his phony corn poen accent. but then again i think most people are smart enough to know it's better when we're talking, even when there's misunderstanding. this is how we stop misunderstandings from becoming crises, from becoming wars. i think it's very good that we're talking to lavrov. i think it's very good that, you know, we're trying to start talking to china again because, again, it's how you stop a dangerous situation from becoming a global war. >> it's certainly a start, and the international community is going to have to start pushing a

little bit harder for there to be some kind of peace negotiations that -- to reach some kind of ground where the ukrainians and the russians can come to some kind of agreement or begin to start agreeing because otherwise we're looking at another two years of trench warfare, and that's ultimately not going to benefit ukrainian civilians who are caught in the middle of this as much as i certainly would hate to cede any ground to russia. >> no doubt about it. mike, listen, we are most likely going to be seeing -- if what military experts on both sides of the atlantic are saying, there's a possibility that we see trench warfare for the next two years. nobody gaining, just a lot of people dying, and if that happens, we're exactly where we were in world war i as far as two, three years of trench

warfare. in that situation nobody wins. of course u.s. policymakers will rightly say it is up to ukraine. they were the ones who were invaded, and i completely agree with that. the question is, though, at what point is just the guarantee of u.s. protection moving forward, the guarantee of nato by let's say, even if it's not by nato, but nato by another name, and the existence, the protection of ukraine as a nation going forward, when does that become enough? >> yeah, joe, the word volatile is not to be misused here because we have a volatile situation in ukraine. we have a volatile situation in our relationship with china and russia. and isolation can be twinned

with the word volatile. it's not good to be isolated in discussing these issues with the chinese, with russia to a certain extent. the meeting with a lavrov and blinken, that's potentially promising even though you hear from certain people who know far more than we do, that lavrov's relationship with putin is not what it was a year ago, two years ago, but still, a discussion is more important than anger and silence between the parties and david ignatius's piece today about the need to renew and restore a relationship with china between president biden and president xi, that's critical too, but the volatility and the bunsen burner effect has to be lowered. that country has been destroyed. we don't want the world to suffer as well. according to a newly declassified assessment, an intensive review by u.s. intelligence agencies concludes that no evidence was found to

link any foreign adversary to the so-called havana syndrome. u.s. officials had previously suspected russia was responsible, but never formally blamed the country. when asked what could have caused the documented brain injuries suffered by some of the employees, intelligence officials cited pre-existing medical conditions, environmental factors, and an environment in which spies and diplomats perceived that they were under mysterious attack. starting in late 2016, u.s. diplomats and spies serving in cuba began reporting bizarre sounds followed by unexplained illnesses including hearing and vision loss, memory and balance problems, headache, and nausea. over the years, around 15,000 u.s. government employees have come forward reporting suspected incidents in measure than a dozen countries. >> let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian.

ken, i know some people who actually have been afflicted by this. they're not going to be happy with the conclusions or the ambiguity that's there, sort of not to simplify this, but the chief wigham's approach nothing to see here, move along, move along, when you have professionals in the cia that went to other countries and started experiencing immediately some pretty severe conditions that they're still fighting now. >> joe, you're absolutely right. our mutual friend, who's a former frequent guest on your show, he is not satisfied with this. he has said publicly he was struck down while he was on assignment in moscow with a brain injury that left him forced to retire from the cia. he's getting treatment for it

now. there are many people like that, and they are not happy. they're perplexed by this intelligence assessment, but i got to tell you, i spent two hours listening to a briefing yesterday inside the director of -- office of the director of national intelligence over in liberty crossing, and it was about as definitive as the intelligence community gets. they said they conducted an incredibly intensive investigation involving hundreds of officers around the world. they looked deeply at places where people thought they were stricken by potential attack from a foreign adversary where they came down with these brain symptoms, and they cordoned off the area. they looked at every potential electronic device, every human being who traversed that area. they tracked people for months, tracked their family members. they found no evidence of foreign involvement and they found some intelligence to refute it. foreign aversaies presumably on intercepts expressing puzzlement about this thing,

thinking it's a u.s. disinformation plot. and they found no credible evidence that any weapon exists that could deliver what some experts thought could be microwave energy causing these symptoms. they also said when health experts began to study the full range of all the people that were saying that they were struck by this, they found that the symptoms really were not similar, that there really isn't a thing called havana syndrome that you could quantify as medical experts that a lot of disparate symptoms. so they're citing environmental factors, pre-existing medical conditions. it's not going to be satisfying, and already i'm seeing that senator marco rubio, the ranking republican on the senate intelligence committee is saying he has concerns about this. he thinks that they're not looking deeply enough. i know there are people in the open source world who are still investigating this, but the intelligence community with a resounding, resounding assessment yesterday saying extremely unlikely that it was a foreign adversary, can't tie it

to any attacks or deliberate acts whatsoever, guys. >> all right, nbc's ken dilanian, thank you so much, as always we greatly appreciate it. willie, it's got to be so frustrating, he talked about paul moropolous who was in russia and got hit with this. you read reports of people driving through intersections and having to pull over, and it just, you know, horrible impact on their brain, brain injuries. and other people describing it to dismiss it as pre-existing injuries or environmental factors obviously has to be very frustrating for those who got hit with this. >> and these are sophisticated people who have worked in the field for many years who have been all over the place and experienced all kinds of obstacles, and they know what they know, and they know that they didn't all have the same pre-existing condition that

forced dozens of them to suddenly feel this way. this is not going to satisfy a lot of people, and i suspect we have not heard the last of this story. back here at home, cob is taking steps to be sure the train derailment and toxic chemical spill on the ohio pennsylvania border never happens again. a bipartisan group of senators unveiled the railway safety act of 2023. it increases safety requirements for trains carrying hazardous materials including more frequent railcar inspections and heightened fines for rail safety violations. majority leader chuck schumer promised to do whatever he can do to move that bill forward. >> in the aftermath of the terrible accident in east palestine, this is precisely the kind of proposal we need to see in congress. a bipartisan rail safety bill, one that includes provisions relevant to the accident that happened a month ago. >> on march 9th, the senate environment and public works committee will hold a hearing on the train derailment. the ceo of norfolk southern will

testify along with the regional administrator of the epa and other local officials on this, mika. >> we'll be following that and -- >> you know, it really is fascinating, though, you look at the republicans, they're trying to blame pete buttigieg. they're trying to blame joe biden. it's like marjorie taylor greene. >> they just highlight actually -- >> trying to blame joe biden for fentanyl deaths that tragically happened in 2020 when donald trump was still president. so they talk about pete buttigieg, and they take everybody's eye off of norfolk southern. they talk about joe biden. they take everybody's eye off of norfolk southern. they actually take everybody's eye off of who was responsible for this and who's responsible for this? a corporation that gave a lot of money to republicans who, you know, you look at donald trump and you look at the fact that

donald trump deregulated, and people talk about regulations. why don't we just call it what it is, he ripped out basic safety measures. >> standards. >> and basic safety standards. of course they don't want to talk about that. they don't want the press talking about all the safety standards that the trump administration and republicans like tore out of the books, so they'll talk about pete buttigieg? really? seriously? a transportation secretary, you're blaming him? >> he's the best person, though, because he can refute them and jump and push back better than anybody. so if they end up shining a light on their own foibles. >> right, what's new? that's what they've been doing now for years. cpac is underway in maryland, but several big name republicans are not attending this year. we've got a live report from the conference. plus, attorney general merrick garland faces heated

questions on capitol hill from republicans. >> the worst actors i've ever seen. >> worst ab tors. ivy league boys plague populous. we'll show you the gop's performance politics on full display, we'll be right -- >> also, willie and i are going to be working up the go fund me page for some of these horrific ivy league populists, hopefully they can brush up on their acting skills. i wonder what methods they use. >> we'll be right back. e right k i have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now, there's skyrizi. ♪♪ with skyrizi, most people who achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months... had lasting clearance through 1 year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections, or a lower ability to fight them, may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms,

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huh? what a time to be alive. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. the future starts now. welcome back. attorney general merrick garland faced a series of attacks yesterday from republican lawmakers during a hearing of the senate judiciary committee. as is customary for an attorney general to do, garland appeared before the new congress to answer questions about a wide

range of topics, but the a.g. spent most of the four-hour hearing defending himself from republican accusations of political bias. >> i have to say i'm deeply disappointed in what the last two years have shown. in my judgment, the department of justice has been politicized to the greatest extent i've ever seen in this country. and it has done a discredit to the department of justice, to the fbi, and to the administration of law in this country. >> i also want to at least respond to your characterization of the department, which i vigorously disagree with. i believe the men and women of the department pursue their work every single day in a nonpartisan and appropriate way. >> when rioters descended at the homes of six supreme court justices night after night after night, you did nothing. have you brought a single case against any of these protesters threatening the justices under

18 us c-section 1507? have you brought even one? >> you asked me whether i sat on my hands and quite the opposite. i sent 70 united states marshals -- >> why are you unwilling to say no. the answer is no, you know it's no. i know it's no, everyone in this hearing room knows it's no, you're not willing to answer a question. >> when you issued your directive, when you directed your criminal divisions and your counterterrorism divisions to investigate parents who were angry at school boards. >> i did not do that. i did not issue any memorandum directing the investigation against parents concerned about their children. the memorandum was aimed at violence and threats of violence against a whole host of school personnel. it was not aimed at parents making complaints to their school board. >> attorney general, are you cultivating sources and spies in

latin mass parishs and other catholic parishes around the country. >> the justice department does not do that. >> how much informants do you have in catholic churches across america? >> does your department have a problem with anti-catholic bias? >> our department is -- protects all religions and all ideologies. it does not have any bias against any religion of any kind. decisions about how to go about this were made on the ground by fbi agents. >> so you're saying you don't know? >> i'm saying what i just said. >> which is that you're abdicating responsibility. >> i'm not abdicating. >> do you think in your opinion, you are the attorney general of the united states. you are in charge of the justice department and, yes, sir, you are responsible. so give me an answer. we're supposed to hate long guns and assault style weapons, you're happy to deploy them against catholics and innocent

children. >> we've got to start with the acting. >> oh, my god. >> i was just thinking, willie, the acting -- i'm so glad you picked up on that. as i was looking at this, i was thinking, i really think that "morning joe" should do i think a service to all of these members. we can play the sarah mclaughlin tune, in the arms of an angel, right, and say for $5, for just $5 you can contribute to people who are insurrectionists against the united states of america # who tried to overthrow a democratic election and help them with acting lessons. i must say, by the way, here we have these three populists, the guy is screaming, and some of the worst acting i've seen. >> i'm still about to -- >> but anyway, you've got the first guy was a princeton boy, i think he went to harvard law

school, and then you had the corn pone guy, oxford boy who voted for john kerry, and then you had josh hawley screaming the insurrectionists -- >> you have a graphic? you have a graphic? >> i love this. you had -- they don't have the oxford boy, though. >> i'm embarrassed for ivy. >> you have the oxford boy, and then you had josh hawley who would went to yale undergrad and stanford law school. they're all screaming and yelling doing their populist nonsense. this is very good. we need just oxford -- if we can do one that just has members who went to oxford and voted for john kerry and play right wing populist, that would be great. maybe we can work on that one too. >> that was so bad. >> first of all, ted yelling about the most politicized

department of justice ever following donald trump's justice department and barr who played, again, who just played donald trump's lackey until the very end when he decided, well, i need to get out and write a book about how i saved -- how i won the war, it's really -- it's mind boggling, and then you got, you know, these guys pick up things off the internet, and they actually have the temerity to ask shocked and then ask merrick garland, you take long guns after little children. what are they doing? this is like -- who's the oldest republican ever. >> strom thurman? >> chuck grassley. >> oh, i thought you meant in history. >> grassley. what is it with these people going, oh, they're taking ar 15s and they're kicking down doors and shooting people, and now

josh hawley says they're doing that to catholics. it's unbelievable. it's unbelievable that they're doing this, willie. but again, you had donald trump -- not one of them complained when donald trump was pushing his attorney general to arrest his political opponent and their family two weeks before the presidential election, and these are the people that led the insurrection against the united states government from within the legislative branch, and they're the ones that are the most shocked and stunned. like what a joke. >> yeah, i think they're probably not shocked and stunned as we saw by some of that bad acting. we've got to get a workshop or something. i don't know if rob reiner would volunteer some of his time, some of our great directors to just kind of help them in these performances. it a's little much as you point out. these are the very people, these are the very senators who

cheered on the insurrection, who supported the people who went to the capitol and attacked the capitol, and i won't even explain to you if you're watching this show wondering what senator hawley was talking about there, it's a story about a man in pennsylvania who stands outside abortion clinics who harasses women as they go in and out, got into a confrontation a shoving match, he was charged with assault, acquitted later, but it was the way he was arrested that josh hawley's talking about that fbi agents showed up at his house to arrest him. they thought that was too much. that's what he's talking about. if you're living your life every day, going about your life and job with your kids, you may not know about that, but it's something that has consumed certain corners of cable news and the internet, and that's what he brought to that hearing with the attorney general yesterday. so seizing on these people, these incidents to make a larger point in their eyes about the weaponized department of justice. coming up, what joe biden's best tool for improving relations with china is, according to david ignatius,

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[ laughter ] >> that's funny. you imagine how much joe biden has been through. that was funny, and that's all it is. so we are raising -- you need to zip it. yes. >> david ignatius, please help me here in your latest piece for "the washington post," you offer the white house a suggestion for cooling down rising tensions with china, writing in part, quote, there are different ways of showing presidential courage. one is getting on a train to visit kyiv in the middle of a war. another is picking up the phone and calling xi jinping at a tame of sharply deteriorating u.s./china relations. reaching out to the chinese leader wouldn't win president biden popularity points here at home, and it would give republicans a talking point they would undoubtedly exploit, but it's the right thing to do regardless of the politics. the current focus of tension involves the u.s. intelligence reporting that china might

supply russia with ammunition to sustain its flagging war with ukraine. officials tell me that china hasn't sent the weapons yet. if it does, biden will have to take sharp countermeasures. that's why biden should make that call to beijing now. >> you know, david, first of all, it doesn't really matter. republicans are going to criticize joe biden if he wears -- >> he doesn't care. >> based on the color of his tie, so who gives a damn about what republicans say. we're worried about america and what's best for america, and it seems to me, if we could talk to the soviet union during the cold war, we should be talking to china, especially with all of the range of issues coming up, i want you to talk about that and also really quickly a heartening "washington post" editorial on the first china -- the bipartisan china committee that i'm sorry, i forget who's running it right now, but we need to get his name.

>> mike gallagher. >> mike gallagher. they're doing it right. they understand the threat coming from china, and really seem to be doing it right. we can do two things at once, right, david? >> so i think that puts it exactly right. mike gallagher is an outstanding legislator. he's leading a genuine bipartisan effort. the one thing that you find agreement among republicans and democrats in washington about these days is china, that china is becoming an increasing competitive threat, got that, and as you said, i think that's a good thing. i worry that in this climate where bashing china is just the best politics there is that the president may be checked from doing what's necessary at a time when the u.s./china relationship really is deteriorating in ways that are harmful to our country, also to china, but we worry about the united states, and i was struck when biden made his

now famous trip to kyiv about what he really represents in the public mind in the united states and around the world. he is this mature statesman like person who has the courage to go to a place that's under fire and do the right thing, embrace a leader, president zelenskyy who is fighting with his country for things. doing the right thing in american politics often is -- it's complicated, and for biden to reach out to china and say, let's talk about our relationship. let's talk about what's going wrong, would be very unpopular with house republicans, republicans generally. he ought to do it anyway, and the reason is he is the steward of our country's interests at a time when this confrontation with china is beginning to be something that i think is going to be costly to us down the road.

we forget we have vastly more military power than all of our adversaries combined. the level of our military is just overwhelming. it knocks you out. i think we ought to realize how powerful we are. there was a hope that secretary blinken would be in beijing around now talking with the chinese leadership. the chinese wanted that. that got blown up by this crazy balloon incident, but i think there's a way starting with the president to put this back on track, it will be a good thing. that's the purpose of this article is basically let's do the simple, direct right thing because that's joe biden's brand. coming up, donald trump's going, but ron desantis isn't. nikki haley will be there, but mike pence not so much. deep divisions in the republican party, we're going to get a live report from the conference. yikes, who did we send there? just ahead on moerj.

"morning joe." "morning joe." "m" a still disrupts my skin.

. julia ainsley joins us with reporting on the department of homeland security widening its investigation into migrant children found working dangerous jobs at slaughterhouses. what do you have new today? >> it's not an isolated incident. we knew when these investigators from the labor department first went into this plant in grand island, nebraska, they found almost two dozen children working in the dead of night cleaning up blood and animal parts off the floor. now dhs is investigating multiple companies who may have brought in children as part of a smuggling ring, brought children from central america, provided them with ids to get these jobs and put them to work in slaughterhouses across america. how do children as young as 13 % >> this is atrocious. there have been so many moshl labor incidents in the meat packing industry through covid and now this. how did this come to light? some of these children were going to school during the day and going at night and working these horrible jobs.

>> it might child abuse. children were falling asleep in class. school officials told the labor department it's common knowledge these kids are coming from the plant to the local middle school. this is in nebraska. the labor department say it takes the cooperation of the companies. pssi, the company we featured, said they've been fully cooperative. federal officials said when they showed up, it took them over an hour to get access and they saw supervisors deleting things off the childrens' phones. >> is it fair to say this is probably still going on in meat packing plants right now somewhere in the united states? >> i think that's a very strong possibility. i asked the labor department how do we know these children didn't walk down the street and get another job? they said, we don't know, we

can't track the children. that's why this investigation is so wide, not just nebraska or one company. >> i'm so glad you're shining a light on this. excellent reporting from julia ainsley. >> thank you. coming up, one of the two candidates in the runoff for mayor of chicago, cook county commissioner brandon johnson will be our guest. y commissioner brandon johnson will be our guest. get refunds.com powered by innovation refunds

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sharpton. >> rev, how are you doing? >> i'm doing good. how are you? >> i'm doing okay. >> call him on the phone and ask him. we're on the air. >> do you have a bible verse for the day? >> do you think we should do a fifth hour of "morning joe"? >> i just sent my kids a bible verse. i randomly once in a while look it up. you don't want to push anything on them. >> which one did you send? >> i said hey, look, i've got a bible verse. >> you have a lot of kids. >> i do. >> my bible verse would be that cpac should open up with st. john's 14th chapter, let not thy heart be troubled, believe in god, believe also in me. >> philippians 2-3, do nothing

out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. rather in humility value others above thyself. >> absolutely. great verse, great message and a great way to conduct yourself. >> okay. >> now we can start with the news. >> we're following a potentially key new development this morning in the manhattan district attorney's criminal investigation into former president trump and the alleged hush payment to adult film actress stormy daniels. former senior advisor to then president trump kellyanne conway met with the d.a.'s office yet after manhattan d.a. alvin bragg empanelled a grand jury to

investigate payments to stormy daniels in exchange for silence. daniels herself has not been interviewed. michael cohen has met with prosecutors for several hours of questioning, but has yet to testify in front of the grand jury. if bragg's office, trump could be charged with a felony. nbc news has reached out to kellyanne conway for a comment but has not received a response. former governor chris christie made this comment. >> given all that you know about the president's legal peril,

being a prosecutor for so many years, do you expect he will be indicted before the debates begin in july and august? by jack smith, by the new york district attorney, do you expect an indictment of the former president? >> i think the most likely place it will happen is new york and i think it's the least harmful matter to him. if, in fact, all they're looking at is the stormy daniels payments, i think leticia james has made it clear she's a political prosecutor and she promised she was going to go get donald trump and i think she probably will. i also don't think it will do much harm to him. in terms of likelihood of indictment, i put new york first, the special counsel second, georgia third. in terms of the seriousness of peril for the president, i

put the special counsel above either of those. >> do you expect an indictment by july? >> i expect that new york probably would act. i don't know when the special counsel would act. my guess is that new york would act by that time. >> i try not to correct former u.s. attorneys, but leticia james isn't doing the stormy daniels payoff. that's alvin bragg. it is interesting that brag is moving forward on this. you obviously know new york politics, understand the pressure that he was under. it's interesting, he started his term by dropping investigations against donald trump, but now this really seems to be taking off. what's happened with the d.a. in manhattan, and why is he now

pursuing this when at first he seemed very reluctant to go after donald trump? >> it is a very interesting development. i have not discussed any of this with the d.a. but what i think has happened, the d.a. said very publicly when they said he had dropped the investigation, that he really had said he didn't see enough evidence to move forward yet. this was only two months into his term. two of the assistant d.a.'s resigned, one wrote a book. now he has pursued this. where it will end up, no one knows. the fact he has brought michael cohen in and now talking to conway, it does look like an active investigation. i also disagree with chris christie that if you have a

former president of the united states tried on a felony, that's a big deal. for the former president of the united states to be standing in a criminal court facing felony charges, i think is something we should not pooh-pooh at. >> we have a list of these potential charges, jonathan lemire. the way they're lining up, i do agree that the stormy daniels payoff should be one of the easier things to prove. i mean, the second i heard how it happened right before the election, he moved it through different channels to keep her quiet before the election. i thought any member of congress that did that would be charged immediately, thrown in jail.

so you have that. you then, of course, have the georgia case, which again pretty straightforward if you listen to the statements that are made by donald trump, you listen to that tape, it actually keeps getting worse the more you play it. then you've got the documents case, the mar-a-lago documents case. i know a lot of viewers are distracted by biden's documents, the fact that he wallpapered beach houses with documents. i'm joking. but all of the biden documents and then you have the pence documents. i know people were distracted for a while on that, but what pence and biden don't have in common with trump, of course, as we all know, trump lied about it. he tried to stop them from getting the documents. >> defied a subpoena. >> and he obstructed the investigation. that's like hitting the ball off

of a tee. that one's easy. and then you look at special counsel and him investigating what happened on january 6th. he's making some really aggressive moves. so i'm really thinking, again, i agree with chris that this stormy daniels case is going to be the easiest to bring and charge, but i think the document case seems like a slam dunk. if he weren't president, he probably would have already been charged and pled out. the georgia case seems straightforward. january 6th is the hardest to prove, but the aggression the special counsel is going with, who he's talking to, the moves he's making, suddenly i could

see three charges coming at donald trump and the special counsel could be the fourth charge. i say all that understanding that donald trump is above the law and nobody ever charges donald trump with anything. so we'll see. >> we'll see. that has been the case to this point. we'll have to see if that changes. it certainly would be history if a former president of the united states was charged with a crime. i think governor christie was right in his assessment that the stormy daniels case would not be that significant for him, despite special campaign finance violations. the documents case, when the documents were discovered at president biden's home, there was a perception that it was good for trump.

but biden and pence behaved appropriately. this is no longer about having the documents. it's about holding onto them and lying about them. and january 6th, yes, is going to be the hardest case to bring. it's more of a tenuous link. if it is, it would also be by far the most serious. jack smith has ramped up trying to get the testimony from pence, ivanka trump and jared kushner. those are your final moves in your playbook before you make a decision. >> i think while you are correct that the charges are so vastly different between former president trump and former vice president pence and president biden, voters conflate all the charges.

it's kind of a wash and is politically a blessing for donald trump, especially with republican primary voters who are already there for him. it gives him a little extra pop even if you're a republican who was wavering and would prefer to move away from trump. >> former president trump will be the final speaker of the annual conservative political action conference, cpac on saturday. who will be there and who won't be there? let's bring in dasha burns live from cpac in national harbor, maryland. the conference kicks off today. it's making news for who's in attendance and maybe who's skipping it. set the scene for us? >> reporter: that's exactly right. the buzz around cpac this year is less about who's going to be on that stage behind me and more about who is not taking the stage this year. most notably, trump's likely

challenger for 2024 florida governor ron desantis will not be here, also mike pence skipping the conference this year, mitch mcconnell, kevin mccarthy, ronna mcdaniel are all skipping the event this year. let's set the stage for a moment. cpac has been known as the woodstock for conservatives. its speaking spots were coveted by political up and comers. this was the setting for reagan's city on a hill speech. the panels here were really focused traditionally on conservative policy issues, national security, immigration, fiscal responsibility. now, contrast that with this year where the panel topics are really more focused on culture wars and wedge issues. you have topics like, quote, the woke playbook and the biden crime family. this has traditionally been the center of gravity for conservatives around this time of year, but some of those key

figures that are absent this time around might show the gravitational pull is disrupted here a little bit. instead, some of those folks, notably governor ron desantis and mike pence, will instead be heading to the club for growth annual donor event in florida. you're seeing this sort of split screen within the gop here. it's interesting to see how much this event has changed in the trump era. at the end of this event, there will be a straw poll, and both trump and desantis will be on that poll. this is the trump show here, so it will be interesting if desantis can run the numbers up a little bit at this maga focused event. >> nbc's dasha burns reporting from cpac. thank you very much, dasha. >> what a real surprise it's going to be when they count all the votes and they actually at the end find out, elise, that

ron paul has won the straw poll. >> congrats to him. >> that at least would be the one good outcome of cpac this year. i could support that. >> there would be a certain consistency to it if ron won. we turn now to disturbing news out of michigan. the fbi has arrested a michigan man who threatened in a february tweet to kill michigan attorney general dana nessel and all over elected jewish officials. the man was previously arrested on assault charges. according to local detroit station fox 2 news, he was reportedly in possession of a handgun and several firearms. in a tweet this morning, the ch michigan ag confirmed she was a target and called for the federal government to take the case seriously. staying in michigan, we've reported how republicans in the state chose failed secretary of state candidate christina

caramo, who has yet to concede last year's race, as their next chair. >> she lost by 14 points. she's still an election denier and still believes, despite the fact she lost by 14 points, she was ripped off too. now already at odds with the party establishment. not surprising. something our next guest says in his latest piece, senior writer for the dispatch david drucker joins us with more on this. david, you know, it's astounding to me. it's just the age that we're in, but in the republican party that i grew up in, if a party got wiped out, if the republican party got wiped out in michigan or had all those high profile lawsuits in arizona, well,

republican leaders would get together and say let's figure out why this happened and let's make damn sure that doesn't happen two years from now. that's not happening anymore. i really don't understand why, because i thought parties still liked winning. but in michigan, can you talk about this split? talk about how republican donors are like, no way, no more. it's really making things so much tougher for mainstream republicans who want to get into politics because, oh i don't know, they like small government, they like less taxes, they like reasonable regulations. >> i think this is a consequence of a party that at its grassroots level and led by some high profile current and former elected politicians, refuse to believe or simply don't believe that they actually lost

elections. you cannot fix something that's broken if you don't believe it's broken. in years past, one thing that would happen both on the right and left, sometimes it would take an election or two or three to sink in, but eventually people would say, we keep losing and let's fix this thing. but when you don't really believe you've been lose inglos can't make the changes necessary. that's what we're seeing in arizona, michigan and other states with state republican parties. in michigan, the other thing that i saw in my reporting for the dispatch was that there's always been a tension between the grassroots committed to ideas and donors and professional operatives, if you will, committed to winning. the grassroots would say, no, no, no, we actually need to stand for something. usually this tension was able to

coexist and both sides could help each other succeed. the grassroots helped you win and the establishment had the resources to get people who are identically aligned with the party. christina karamo, the new elected state republican party chairman, they're talking about funneling money into existing conservative outside groups and there are discussions under way to form other 0 super pacs so they don't have to rely on the state party. >> good analysis of michigan. it seems to me this is the issue writ large for the republican

party across the country as we head into 2024, where it's election deniers versus perhaps more mainstream republicans or trump versus non-trump members of the party. we see ronna mcdaniel try to say, yes, of course we'll support the republican nominee, whoever that is. donald trump is already suggesting he's probably not going to do that. does anyone think if trump were to be bested in a primary, do we think he's going to go away? no. he's not going to concede defeat here. this is a schism that's only going to grow. is anyone in the republican party trying to mend the fences before 2024? >> there are constant discussions about mending the fences. i just don't think anybody's landed on a solution that everybody can get behind. the interesting thing about karamo in michigan, he actually

endorsed mat deperno for chairman. i think this is an issue that goes beyond trump. he's very influential in the republican party, but he's not all powerful. a lot of this is a movement that he might have stoked, but that often outpaces him. you have a chairman here that even trump wasn't supportive of. when you're talking about bringing the party together in a key 2024 battleground, how do you bring them together when even trump can't corral the grassroots around something they're not interested in? so you have republicans trying to work around both trump and his disciples in michigan. the question is going to be, number one, will the grassroots respond even if there is opposition to the chairman they

elected? and number two, will voters, rank and file voters may want to vote republican, but don't like where the party has gone. will they respond? look at a right wing element, if you will, and say i don't like that, but given where other parts of the party are, i can support them and their candidates. that's really unknown right now. >> david drucker, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. so chicago voters will head to the polls again in april to choose between two candidates who advanced to a runoff in tuesday's primary for mayor. the two contenders are former chicago public schools cheese paul value last and our next guest cook county commissioner brandon johnson, who joins us now. thank you very much for joining us this morning.

this is historic in so many ways given there is this runoff happening. tell us why you chose to run and why you should be the next mayor of chicago? >> thanks for having me and good morning. it's a fascinating time in the city of chicago. we're going to make history. i'll be the first public schoolteacher ever elected to become mayor of the city of chicago. i started teaching middle school well over 15 years ago in the city of chicago in cabrini green, chicago. my students woke up every single morning and they could see one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the entire country downtown from their back windows, but out of their front windows they had bulldozers staring them down preparing to destroy their public housing. they would come into my

classroom where i taught social studies. in that tale of two cities, we're going to disrupt that and usher in one story, one chicago. that's what i'm excited about. >> commissioner, thank you so much for being with us. you talked about a safer chicago. i heard that was part of the description of what your chicago looks like. there's always sort of an oversimplification in media when you look at these races, es especially what we've seen in the democrat party. that is a progressive candidate against a, quote, law and order candidate. my question is, can a progressive candidate at the same time, like yourself, is that a false choice is a better way to ask this question?

is that a false choice? can't progressive candidates also be candidates who are tough on crime? >> well, it's really about being smart. my wife and i will be celebrating 25 years of marriage in june. we're raising all three of our children in one of the most dynamic communities in the entire country. it's the austin neighborhood on the west side of chicago. it's one of the largest concentration of black folks in the entire country. we love the west side. we love the austin neighborhood, but it has been a community that has been disinvested in in the course of several decades now. because of that, we have seen unprecedented levels of violence. i've had to change one of the windows from one of the bullets that have come through our home. this is something we don't just see on the news, but we experience it every single day. that's why i'm very much committed to doing what works. about 37% of 911 calls in

chicago are mental health crises. so we're putting police officers in a space where they are not qualified to address. we're forcing police officers to behave as social workers. that's why we're committed to making sure we have emt and crisis interventionists and social workers and therapists that can show up to address the mental health crises. on the west side of chicago we saw the most gruesome act when one of the students who came home from college was having a mental health crises. his neighbor came to his defense and they both ended up dead. we're going to make sure police officers can focus on the more serious violent crimes, in which 40% of those violent crimes take place in 6% of the entire city. by making sure that we are responding not just in an equitable way but a strategic way, that's how we begin to move towards a better, stronger,

safer chicago. that's what i'm committed to doing. >> maybe you can help us out since you've been studying this issue, you've been living this issue. we, of course, heard that mayor lightfoot lost because of crime. total crime is up 41% since last year in chicago, up 45% since 2020. then you look at robberies, up 14%, car thefts up 102%. as the nation, especially mayors and d.a.'s try to grapple with a rise in crime over the past couple of years overall, what do you see as the cause of that? and then what needs to be done

for policing? does there need to be more of a focus in, like you said, that 6% area, more of a targeted focus where most of those murders take place so you can protect the citizens in those neighborhoods? what's the answer to this? >> it has to be reflective of a more wholistic approach. as you mentioned, the type of violence that we're seeing across the country, it's really the direct result of disinvestment. there was a scripture that was referenced earlier. i appreciate reverend al for bringing it up. my scripture today is where your heart is, your treasure will be also. because of disinvestment we have not done what safe american cities do across the country. they all have one thing in common. they invest in people. i grew up in a sanctified home for whatever it's worth. my father was a pastor and

carpenter. when your father is just like jesus, it's a lot of pressure at home. but he raised us with those principles and values that we are only as strong as the person who is struggling the most. so that's why my plan, a very sweeping public safety plan and a budget plan that gets at the root causes of the violence in the city of chicago and the root causes we're seeing all over the country, but we're dealing with the immediate crisis. part of our public safety plan, we're going to promote 200 more detectives from within the rank and file so they can begin to solve the violence that takes place in the city of chicago, but we have a consent decree that's been ignored. we're going to make sure we're implementing that with expediency. where your treasure is, of course your heart will be also. so as the mayor of the city of chicago, i'm committed to

investing in people. that's what's going to get us out of this particular state of violence and trauma people have been experiencing for too long in this city. really it's been a national problem. i'm prepared to address it head on, because i have the lived experience of people across this country and especially here in chicago that the best investment we could make is in our young people. i've been a middle schoolteacher. by the way, because i did not become a pastor, i became a middle schoolteacher. if you know anything about 12 and 13 and 14-year-olds, i definitely get to go to heaven no matter what. now those same students, i have to go back to them and ask for their votes. there's a direct correlation between youth employment and violence reduction. i'm committed to hiring young people year round. if we do these things, we can create a safer, stronger, better

chicago. >> he was, in fact, raised in a sanctified home. where your treasure is, there too will be your heart. quoting jesus in the sermon on the mount. sign him up. >> sign him up. his dad and i both preach about a carpenter. i know something about sanctified churches and carpenters. let me ask you this, commissioner. the overall focus of crime and the polls say one of the reasons the incumbent lost was because of crime. it's something we've had to wrestle with around the country. i even had an apartment across the street from reverend hatch's church dealing with crime in chicago, traveling back and forth, so i know what you're talking about and the neighborhood you come from. there have been those in the

progressives and left of center that you and i identify with that say defund the police. i say define the police. how will you define policing in chicago if you're mayor? the police chief resigned yesterday. who will help you define that? have you thought about who you would choose as a police chief or the type of person you would have as a police chief? >> it's really about the type. my father, who turned 80 years old just this past month in the middle of my election, which i told him how selfish that was to have a birthday then, but one thing he was very clear about raising all 10 of us, by the way, in a home with one bathroom. we should share stories later about learning how to negotiate particularly with sisters. he always said, listen, whatever you do, you have to be

collaborative, competent and make sure you demonstrate compassion. that's what i'm looking for in the next superintendent. that's what i'm going to be looking for for my entire administration. can you work with people? can you display a level of competence? can you make sure you are compassionate? that's what policing has to look like, public education, public housing, public transportation and good jobs as we come out of the month of history celebrating black history. as a social studies teacher, i'm very clear about what the formerly enslaved asked for as emancipation became more of a reality. good jobs, schools, transportation, health care and housing. we could talk about environment and access to food, right? but we have not moved too far away from these demands. that's why having someone collaborative, compassionate, competent, someone who actually wants to serve, that's what chicago deserves and that's what

i'm going to bring as the next mayor of the city of chicago. i would have become a pastor, but those are nonunion positions. if i could start the chicago preacher union, i would consider redefining my career. >> you're going into meddling now. >> exactly. i've set to see a board of deacons that would allow a unionized preacher. deacons, at least in the church i went to growing up, they don't believe in -- the rev and i will tell you it's tough enough being a preacher's kid, but to be a preacher and carpenter's kid at the same time, that is tough. thank you so much. good luck. >> thank you very much. come visit us in chicago.

reverend al, the west side of chicago is where martin luther king, jr. stayed. thank you again. >> we'll talk to his opponent in that april 4th runoff paul value last. coming up, two lawmakers prove that friendly debate between republicans and democrats is actually possible. we'll explain this crazy scene on capitol hill where republicans and democrats get along with each other. they ran a pretty good bipartisan committee on the hill yesterday on china as well. also, massive snowfall in southern california. they've had quite a year that could keep road crews busy for up to a week. we're going to be joined by a director of an oscar nominated documentary on the opioid crisis. nominated documentary on the opioid crisis we have this hotel to our...selves..?

- how'd you get here? - kayak! they compared hundreds of travel sites to find a great deal on my flight, car, and hotel. - kayak. search one and done. we must finally hold social media companies accountable. it's time to pass bipartisan legislation to stop big tech from collecting personal data on our kids and teenagers online. ban targeted advertising to children.

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it's cool to have two people in my state who can be president. >> who? >> desantis? >> he's a nationalist. he's a white supremacist. >> no, he's not. >> he's anti-gay. >> no, he's not. >> he's anti-woman, he's anti-black. who's the other one? >> i called them. i said tell me what's happening. they said it's really not that, but people are trying to raise a fuss. >> why can't people who have been incarcerated and did their time, why can't they be allowed to vote? >> they are in our state. >> no, they're not! >> who's the second person? >> you already know that's trump and ron. >> so trump claims florida now?

>> he been claiming florida. >> bye, felicia. >> that's what he told kathy hochul. he said, i got to go. >> he's going to get crushed. biden passed three bipartisan pieces of legislation after an insurrection during a global pandemic. >> oh my gosh, come on, man. >> killing the game. >> that's fantastic. that was republican congressman byron donalds of florida and democratic congressman jamal bowman of new york, spontaneously sparring on the steps of the u.s. capitol. donalds was about to start an interview when bowman chimed in. the two went back and forth over a whole host of issues, some of which you heard on that clip. that was wonderful. >> it's great. there would be debates back and

forth and people would say, oh, you must hate congressmen. no, we're really good friends. we just passionately disagree on issues. >> joining us now mehdi hasan. >> it's so great to have you back with us again. let's talk to democrats and liberals. i found at times they think that just being right is enough to win a debate. of course, you say that is a terrible mistake for them to make. you not only have to be right by appealing to the head, you've got to appeal to the heart as well. tell us about it. >> i think the problem for

democrats is that too many democrats think if you can win an argument, the way to do it is just have one more statistic, one more fact. if you can just get one more pugh poll out, i'll win. that's not how we argue with our spouses or kids. we don't just throw a blizzard of statistics. republicans come to a debate with a knife fight, democrats with a policy paper. that is not how you win over people. people want to be energized. they want an appeal to their heart, not just their head. if you look at democratic presidential candidates over the years who have done badly, the hillary clintons, it's because they were too obsessed with

detail and not connecting with people in an emotional, inspiring way. >> so let's also talk about something that i saw not only a lot of democrats have problems with, especially in 2017, 2018, 2019, but also a lot of editors. actually, i even heard it on both sides of pennsylvania avenue just a couple of years ago, just being completely flummoxed about what they do when people are lying all the time, all the time. it's the firehose of falsehood. say you're debating donald trump and he starts going through a list of things that you know are lies. trump will make a big lie, then follow it with another and another and another. then you cut to marco rubio, who's just sitting there, doesn't even know where to begin.

he's so flummoxed, he gets nothing out. what do you do when somebody just starts lying one after another after another? >> it's such a great question. so many people do it now, not just trump, all the mini trumps we see across the country. beware the galloper. there's this technique called the gish gallop which comes from creationist christians. you just bombard your opponent with falsehoods. you've got to pick your battles. you cannot respond to a hundred of trump's lies. pick the most absurd, ridiculous dumb one and go after that one. make him have to defend that one ridiculous point. don't move on, don't budge. too many people in our industry we do interviews because we have an ad break coming up, we move

on. the gish galloper, the bs merchant want us to move on. they don't want to be pressed on the nonsense. don't budge. tell the audience what's going on. you mentioned the russian firehose of falsehood. the way to stop it is to put raincoats on your audience. protect your audience. tell them what's going on. say, look, this is not an argument. this is a strategy. they are trying to disorient you. >> that sounds brilliant. maybe at the beginning, do you set it up, like if you're debating donald trump, do you say thank you so much, da da da da da, but let me tell you what you're going to hear tonight. that guy is going to spend the next two hours lying to you over and over and over again. give a couple of examples of the big lies he's going to do. does that allow you when it starts to just laugh and go look

at that, he just did it? >> that's two different chapters of the book. one is preemption. some people think you have to have the last word. sometimes it's better to have the first word. reframe the argument before they even open their mouths. number two, people called a homonym arguments are bad. no. it's your job to tell the audience they have a history of lying, don't trust that person. i would offer as a mod em jonathan swan's interview from ax yoes with trump. the meme interview of jonathan looking confused. he did all the right things. he didn't budge. trump threw those ridiculous south korean graphs at him. jonathan didn't budge. he said, okay, let's look at these ridiculous graphs.

he picked one thing. trump is thinking, i've just thrown out south korea. i don't know anything about south korea. he expected the interview to move on. jonathan said let's talk about south korea. you've got to stay put and not let them dance around you with bs. it's not that they want to believe you over their opponent. the point of the fascist in this country right now when they're saying this stuff is not that they want you to believe them over him. they want you to believe no one. they want a state of complete confusion, because that allows a strong man to emerge. >> all the lies spread out there, it is an old fascist trick where, again, you want to exhaust your audience so they're exhausted. pretty soon they're like, i can't sort through all this. that's what i hear from all of my friends. they go, oh, it's so confusing,

i don't even follow the news anymore. >> we do have to move on. >> win every argument. there are people watching this going i'm a terrible debater, i'm terrible at public speaking, this book will do me no good. give us some examples of people who may not have been good debaters early in their careers who became great debaters by the end. >> winston churchill, former prime minister of great britain. he was awful. he had a stutter and a stammer. he becomes the man who gave us fight them on the beaches, never surrender. he did it through practice. he used to practice in the bathtub. [ laughter ] >> practice, absolutely. >> what a great book. >> thank you so much.

the new book is entitled "win every argument." the mehdi hasan show airs sundays at 8:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc and tuesdays on peacock. thank you once again for being on this morning. coming up, the latest on the massive snowstorms that have pummelled the west coast, forcing one iconic national park to close and leaving many residents asking where do we put all this snow? also ahead, inside the fight for accountability in america's opioid crisis. we'll be joined director of the academy award nominated documentary as well as one of the film's subjects. we're back in one minute. >> start to go up again. >> here's one. >> well, right here the united states is lowest in numerous categories, we're lower than the world. >> lower than the world?

>> lower than europe. >> in what? >> take a look. right here. >> oh, you're doing deaths as a proportion of cases. i'm doing death as a course of population, that's where the u.s. is really bad. >> you can't do that. you have to go by -- you have to go by where -- look, here is the united states. you have to go by the cases. the cases -- >> why not as a proportion of -- >> what it says is when you have somebody where there's a case, the people that live from those cases. live from those cases. heartburn acid preventn with just one pill a day. choose acid prevention. choose nexium.

yosemite national park has been closed indefinitely after

some areas received, get this, as much as 15 feet of snow. the park has been closed since saturday and still has no estimated date of reopening. the park was aiming to reopen today, but officials had to postpone that plan after more snow fell there yesterday. meanwhile, california governor gavin newsom yesterday proclaimed a state of emergency for 13 county thes after a series of winter storms dumped massive amount of snow. san bernardino county residents are dealing with as much as seven feet of snow. officials there warn that even with around the clock snow plowing it could take a week to reach some areas. one issue residents there now face with so much snow, they're running out of places to put it. >> running out of places to put it. they can always look back to what the former mayor of d.c. said when he was on a vacation,

i believe in the caribbean, he said god brought it, god can take it away. >> thanks. >> so i'm getting a message from a friend who i won't identify, he said i'm at sea pac, a guy who's been in the media for quite some time, and it is a shadow of itself, not the old days when joe scarborough was mobbed. kind of think it's a reflection of movements affection for donald trump, and me goes on and on, but there's somebody inside that's been going there since ronald reagan -- >> not recognizing it. >> -- gave his city on the hill speech, and just doesn't even reck nice it. >> that's what was looking like it's going to happen and now we're getting word from the inside a lot of big names not attending. other news now, in 2007, executives from purdue pharma pleaded guilty to federal

charges of knowingly misleading millions of people about the addictive qualities of their drug oxycontin. but for years after the billionaire family that founded purdue, the sacklers continued their work in the public eye with no repercussions for the lives they damaged. that is until 2017 when a world renowned artist nan golden made it her mission to get justice for those no longer alive to seek it themselves, and now nan's work and the continued efforts of her group are the focus of an oscar nominated documentary entitled "all the beauty and the bloodshed" joining us now the film's writer and director, laura poitress and harry cohen, an organizer with the direct action collective prescription addiction intervention now that was founded by nan golden.

let's first start with the piece itself, and laura tell us a little bit about this documentary, and congratulations on the oscar nomination. >> thank you so much. it's great to be here. the film, as you said, follows nan golden who created an organization called pain prescription addiction intervention now with the idea of pushing the museums and gallery spaces to remove the sackler name from their museums and stop taking money for the reasons that you said, their company purdue pharma has been found guilty on multiple federal charges for their marketing of oxycontin which has fueled the opioid crisis. this began two decades ago, it's shocking we're here still talking about this. nan and harry was one of the members of p.a.i.n. that started doing these protests in museum spaces. it took them a while, but after four years the name came down from the met, the guggenheim,

the national portrait gallery. >> harry, tell us about that work. what inspired you to join it? walk us through those early days when it wasn't getting enough attention. >> yeah, absolutely. my own place in this work comes from my history and experience in the overdose crisis. i'm from long island miami and saw a lot of people die and get put in and out of prison dozens of times, growing up, neighbors and friends. and in this work we really approached museums at first because that was the place that nan had stature and her artwork had reverence in that she could have her voice heard. like laura said and you introduced, 2007 there were federal charges put against purdue pharma. nobody knew who the sacklers were. these were people who their company purdue pharma made $36 billion off of this drug, so nan was able to go to these museums and show people that the people who have suffered and the people who are dying from this epidemic are not the ones who

deserve the stigma of drug use and of all the things that it causes in our society. it's people like the sacklers who see fit to profit off of it. >> how did you -- and i'm older, i won't say old, but older activist myself, how did you keep your people involved, active, and encouraged even when they were being ignored at first? what was the message that kept driving? >> for us, i think the fact that we were a small, tight-knit group of honestly 15 or 20 people when we would be meeting on wednesday nights. the fact that we were all so close and could keep each other strong in these moments where we knew the work we were doing was powerful. we were filming it and documenting ourselves before laura came into the picture and helped us turn it into a film. but we knew it was meaningful to capture this for posterity even if the media wasn't listening to us at first, but clearly they

are now. >> i've long admired your work, and the story with ed ward snowden, i'd be remiss if i didn't ask you ten years later, what did you make of working on that story and of edward snowden? >> i'm very proud of that reporting. it was acknowledged, received a pulitzer prize for public service. it was scary and dangerous reporting and, yeah, i'm just very proud. i think it raised awareness of the powers of surveillance and the nsa and, you know, government found many of these programs to be illegal. so yeah, i'm very proud of the work. >> all right. the oscar-nominated documentary, "all the beauty and the bloodshed" premiers on march 19th on hbo and hbo max. >> what an important documentary. >> absolutely. the film's director, laura portras, an organizer at the p.a.i.n. direct, harry cohen, thank you very much for doing this. we look forward to it. thank you. >> we greatly appreciate it.

>> we have just ten seconds, what's your final thought this morning, joe scarborough? >> i wanted to go to the rev, he's on fire today. the commissioner rev, come on, you know, preacher's kids can be tough, right? a lot of pressur but a carpenter and a preacher, i don't know how he did it. >> that's a rough combination, we actually had a candidate quoting the bible this morning. we're going to have a great day deacon scarborough. sfwr amen, reverend sharpton. that does it for us this morning, lindsey reiser picks up the coverage right now. it's 10:00 a.m. in new york, i'm lindsey reiser. right now all eyes are on this courtroom in south carolina as the closely watched double murder trial of alex murdaugh s its final stages. the defense has begun its closing arguments just